I'm going to unpack what a phobia really is, how they are created and how they actually work.
After years of working with phobias, I've seen it all...
From more well-known ones such as spiders, needles, flying, vomit, public speaking etc. to buttons, Heinz beans, tall buildings, ghosts and many many more...
The truth is, however... no matter what kind of phobia you have, they can all be resolved following the same principles.
So WHAT IS A PHOBIA?
By now you've probably already heard the common rhetoric that a phobia is an irrational fear.
"YoUr PhObIa iS JuSt aN IrRaTiOnAL FeAr!!"
But let's break down the term "irrational fear"
Fear is an emotional response that we experience internally to a perceived threat of some kind.
An irrational fear essentially means we have an internal response to something that is not externally rooted in our present reality.
So if the fear is not rooted in our present external reality it means that the external trigger is not actually the source of our fear.
Here's an example:
A man walks into a barn and mistakes a rope for a snake and panics only to realise that it was just a rope and immediately calms down.
So whilst it appears that our fear is triggered by an external subject or circumstance, the source of our fear is actually happening within us and we project it onto our reality.
We are having an internal response to something that appears to be outside of us.
We will be uncovering this internal response shortly.
As human beings with 5 senses that are externally focused and we assume that there is an outside world around us... and there probably is but we are processing and interpreting the world around us, within our brain.
Which is an organ within our skull.
We literally perceive the world around us, within our brain and we project that process back onto the world around us to gather our orientation and perception.
For example...
If two people walked into an art gallery and viewed a piece of art on the wall...
One person could feel absolutely amazed by it and think to themselves that it it is a work of perfection.
Whilst the other person may see the same piece of art and think it was an ugly piece of modern junk and even find it to be a repulsive offence to the art community.
But the truth is... The art in and of itself is neither good nor bad... It simply remains as it is.
Yet it means so many different things to so many different people...
Because it is humans that give meaning unto the things around them.
Life is an empty canvas and we paint the meaning onto life around us with our thoughts, beliefs and emotions.
And like the old saying goes... Beauty exists within the eye of the beholder
All perception is projection.
And all perceptions can be changed with willingness and openness.
Question time...
If you were absolutely certain and you were 100% guaranteed that you wouldn't experience any symptoms of fear or panic the next time you were to see a spider, needle or go on a plane or whatever your phobia is.
If you knew you could see or do those things without any of the fear or panic, knowing that feeling would never come back on the inside... would you be ok with it?
The chances are... without that feeling of panic on the inside... you would be ok with it because there would be no more phobia any longer.
This shows us that it's less to do with the external trigger and much more to do with that internal feeling on the inside.
Without that feeling, you would be absolutely fine and very much in control. This is because we are more afraid of how it makes us feel than the external object/ environment itself.
And this is such a powerful thing because we can change these feelings on the inside and we will be doing this later in the course together.
Want to learn how we can help you eliminate your phobia for good?
We can do this without the stress of exposure therapy, coping strategies or tedious years of therapy. The most extreme and lifelong phobias have been eliminated with this method. You can find out more here: www.phobiatofreedom.com
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