My anxiety at its worst made me spiral into a worrying loop of “what if the worst happens”, yet I couldn’t stop but try to anticipate every possible solution to my worries. In the past, I never understood why people worried: “It makes no sense, it won’t happen and if my biggest fears were to come true I’d have to be extremely unlucky.” was how I used to rationalise my own worries. My fear was crashing my car and killing myself and every other road user. I knew it was ridiculous, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, hyperaware to every noise, movement, and speed of all of the other cars on the road.
I wonder what your biggest fears are? We all have one deep inside, one we probably haven’t discussed with anyone. Some clients have shared fears as:
What if everyone finds out who I really am?
What if I make a fool of myself?
What if I do it and I’m not good enough?
What if I make a mistake?
What if I lose my job, partner, house etc.?
Spending so much time overthinking was exhausting, I struggled to relax because when I stopped, my thoughts took over and I felt the fear closing in. Instead, I filled my days with work, socialising, exercising and scrolling through social media because when I was busy I thought the fear wasn’t there but it was always in the back of my mind. In fact, by keeping myself busy I was actually making things worse. The negative thoughts were always lurking, waiting for an opportunity to sneak in, second-guessed myself and tried to control the situation.
The interesting thing about fear
The common denominator of fear is that is keeps us from experiencing life in the way we want to. Keeps us from being honest and open with a friend. Fear can affect us emotionally, physically and spiritually. Keeps us safe, perhaps too safe.
We all have different fears, but when we dig a little deeper, we can break them down into three levels:
Level 1 - The surface story - Things that happen to us or that require action.
Level 2 - Not situation-orientated - Things that affect the Ego.
Level 3 - which underlies most fears and really does hit the route of the problem is at the bottom of every one of our fears is simply the fear that you can’t handle whatever life may bring you.
Late at night, When I had time to think, I couldn’t rationalise myself out of it because the “what if’s” always felt scarier when everyone else was asleep. The reason we get stuck in the loop is because we stop at the point of greatest fear! We rarely use our minds to analyse this fear in a positive way, isn't that a waste of time and energy? Imagine if we spent time thinking about face our fears and succeeding. Imagine if it all went smoothly. Wouldn't it be great if we could stop the loop and get a good night's sleep.
Read it again...
Nothing! No fear. It’s that simple.
Well, if it were that simple, I would be doing it myself by now! I hear you saying. You're right. The reason we can’t logically think ourselves out of the fear loop is because of our subconscious mind. While we can logically reason why the thing we fear probably won't happen, our subconscious mind has been looping that fear for weeks, months, and perhaps years and despite not consciously wanting it, we feel safer knowing the fear; we've been conditioned and we know that feeling, whereas we don't yet know the feeling of overcoming it. Can you spend a few minutes knowing you can handle anything, practicing it? Saying “I can handle it!” Practice it like you did when you practiced the fear loop.
Positively rehearsing overcoming your fears
Even though it may feel second nature to return to the comfortable feeling of the fear loop when you notice yourself in it, I want you to stop, challenge yourself, and say to yourself, "Stop! I can handle it.” The subconscious mind takes note of what we say to ourselves, and since the subconscious mind makes things happen for us, it starts to show you ways in which you are handing things. Over time, the more you say "I can handle this", the more you feel, hear and know you can handle it. Building resilience, building confidence to overcome the simplest of fears which have been holding you back. The interesting thing is that when you practice this time and time again the more fearless you become.
Hypnosis helps you to access your subconscious mind and make changes to how you behaved, think and react to your fears. Building your resources to handle any and all situations, seeing yourself handling what you once feared. Feeling and knowing you have everything you need to face your fears. Hypnosis helps to speed this process up, accepting suggestions such as “I can handle it” In trance you are able to overcome your fears sometimes very quickly, your subconscious mind primed to make the changes you have made your goal.
I’d love to hear how you’ve overcome your fears? what has resonated for you? What still keeps you stuck?
If you are interesting in finding out how hypnosis can help you to overcome your fears go to work with me to book a free consultation and lets discuss your biggest fear.
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