When Fear Takes Over – Overcome Your Phobia

It’s time to overcome your phobia.

Yesterday, I had a blood test. What made this one truly unique was that this was the one that made me realise I had finally overcome my childhood phobia.

I even let out a bit of a giggle as the needle went in. Gone was the sharp, uncomfortable sting or the drawn out wait until the test was done. It all seemed so easy.

As a child, my fear of needles was so extreme that the majority of blood tests needed to be aborted. I would scream and wiggle, and it was just too dangerous to attempt to take blood from someone that active.

You have to admire the willpower, determination and stamina I possessed to maintain that level of phobic reaction over the years. While most people could easily forget how to have a phobic reaction over time, I had managed to get it down to a fine art. At will, I could get my imagination to do some next level worst case scenarios and have my body react to those images as if it was already happening. That’s a skill, folks.

Your experiences meet your expectations.

When you’re anxious and expecting a needle to hurt, it will build up to match your expectation.

Your body tenses up, and you start telling yourself silly things.

You imagine the worst, and negative thoughts start racing through your mind.

However, the reality is that the needle sting lasts only a few seconds, and all those silly things that we fear rarely actually happen.

It seems that we’re capable of making possible scenarios in our heads much scarier and more frightening than anything reality could possibly deliver.

The imagination activates the anxiety flight or fight response.

Your mind doesn’t know the difference between what is real or what is imagined.

This is why you can imagine your favorite food while hungry, and your body reacts as if the food is right in front of you.

All phobic reactions are caused by us imagining the worst and dealing with the fight-or-flight mechanism that we’re hardwired with, causing us to want to run.

The techniques below will help you to better manage this fight or flight feeling and place you on the path to overcome your phobia.

Deep breathing to calm the body

Deep breathing exercises are remarkably effective in calming the system.

When your body responds to anxiety by going into fight-or-flight mode, deep breathing allows your body to rewind and become calm.

To try it out, close your eyes and focus on your breath. Breathe in to the count of five, hold at the top, and then breathe out to the count of seven.

This exercise will help you feel the anxiety beginning to dissipate quickly.

Distract your negative thoughts to something more pleasant

Another way to manage phobias is by distracting your thoughts.

Over time, I’ve been able to enter into a relaxed state by thinking in vivid detail about a place where I feel most relaxed. I indulge in the experience, noticing what time of day it is, what kind of things I’m hearing, what kind of thoughts I’m telling myself, and even what kinds of textures my hands are touching and how they feel.

I’ve practiced going to this relaxing place so often now that I’m able to close my eyes and go there quickly.

Hypnotherapy for overcoming phobias

Hypnotherapy can also be extremely useful in assisting those people who still feel overwhelmed by their phobia.

By using hypnosis, you can access your unconscious mind and help it develop new, more positive responses to needles.

It can be an effective way to help you manage your fear, especially if it is impacting your life in significant ways.

Your mind learns that it is all ok.

What is wonderful is that, over time, your mind learns that it doesn’t need to be afraid anymore.

The mind learns that it has more control over that old phobia than it once thought. Once that happens, it is hard for that old phobia to exist in the same way for you again.

Your mind is a truly incredible thing.

You have to love the power of the mind.

As I often tell my clients, if your mind is trying to trick you by creating images of the worst possible thing, you can use that same technology to dismantle the phobia.

In a moment of a bad experience, a phobia can be created yet we’re only just beginning to learn that in about the same amount of time, many phobias can be dismantled too.

Although individuals may have different takeaways from hypnotherapy, they’ll all leave with effective strategies to minimize past trigger-related anxiety.

Release Hypnosis Melbourne Hypnotherapy

Since 2016, Lawrence Akers has been working under the name Release Hypnosis offering Hypnotherapy and ACT based work to the people of Melbourne or an online service. Based on St Kilda Rd, Release Hypnosis is an easy and convenient location to get to and accessible by the ANZAC station train and tram stop. Release Hypnosis can help with a wide range of presenting issues, and I offer a free 30 minute no obligation discovery call for those who are unsure if hypnotherapy is the right way forward for them.

Book Your FREE 30 Minute Consultation With Release Hypnosis NOW!

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