Why not give up that fear?
So yesterday I wrote about New Year’s resolutions but what if you don’t want to give up or cut down on the traditional subjects of the New Year resolution. Do you have what most people consider an irrational phobia? I say what most people consider irrational but to the sufferer it is totally real. Why not make the resolution to overcome it and stop it from ruling your life? It is, after all your life. Now if you don’t consider it a big enough problem to do anything about, then fair enough, your choice, nobody can force you to change. However, if you would like to take control then read on. Why not read on anyway, just for the hell of it. These phobias (flying, spiders, insects etc) can have a massive impact on some people’s lives and there really is no reason they can’t overcome them. You have probably heard the phrase “face your fears” and you could go down this route but anyone who has tried it can tell you just thinking about it before can bring on feelings of anxiety just at the prospect. But if you’ve managed to live life so far why bother now to rid yourself of your phobia? The answer to that is while phobias can’t be caught in the medical term they can and are learnt. Most fears and phobias are learnt before the age of seven. It can be as simple as a parent reacting badly to a spider and the idea of spiders are a bad thing is implanted into the young subconscious. Over time this behaviour pattern is repeated over and over again which reinforces the idea and bingo: another child has a fear of spiders. You see, the young mind of a 2-7 year old see’s the world differently from the adult who can put things into context due to experience. No matter how much you try to hide your fear, your unconscious body language will betray you and as stated the young mind takes your reaction out of context. While this means it is far too easy to pass on fears and phobias, it is also the way we can work together to end the problem. Using hypnotherapy the fear held within the subconscious can be “re-framed” and so the events that caused your phobia can be seen from an experienced adult’s point of view and put in the correct context. Now fear has its place. If you walk into a room to be confronted by an adult tiger that hasn’t eaten for a week you should feel fear but, should you break out in a cold sweat and have a racing heart beat because there’s an insect flying around the room.