Specializing in Fear, Phobia & Anxiety Treatment using NLP and Hypnosis

Anxiety

Almost all of us know how it feels to be anxious. It’s that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, the fizzy feeling in your hands or the heaviness in your chest. It’s fear, nerves and panic all wrapped up and delivered like an unwanted gift. 

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For some it’s a fleeting feeling that comes and goes, for others, it lingers and impacts day-to-day life. There are lots of different approaches to help with anxiety, depending on your particular circumstances. Here, we’re going to be exploring anxiety in more depth, how it impacts self-esteem and the role coaching can provide in managing it.

 

What is anxiety?

Whenever we feel fearful of something, are tense or worried, this is anxiety. Usually, we feel anxious about something that’s about to happen or something that we think could happen in the future. Sometimes we feel anxious about past events, for example, ruminating on conversations or events and worrying that we did/said the wrong thing.

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While unpleasant, anxiety is actually a very normal and human response to threat and its aim is to keep us safe. When we evolved, our brains developed a mechanism to release certain hormones (like cortisol and adrenaline) when it feels under threat. These hormones help us be more alert and make our blood rush to where it's needed the most.

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This is what’s known as the fight, flight or freeze response because the hormones help prepare us to fight, run away or stay very still. When this response first developed, it was incredibly helpful and kept us safe from predators. 

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"The problem is, our brains haven’t evolved in a very long time and this response is now often triggered by different threats."

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We’re less likely to come face-to-face with a predator these days, so other ‘perceived threats’ like seeing your inbox filling up or knowing you have to do a speech soon can trigger the same response.

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We often can’t run away or fight with these threats either, so the hormones continue to course through our bodies. Sometimes we don’t even need a trigger to feel this way. For some, anxiety builds up to such a point that we create our own triggers in our minds or we feel a constant hum of anxiety.

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This is when anxiety can become a mental health concern - when it’s impacting daily life and stopping you from doing the things you want. If your symptoms meet specific criteria, you may be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. If you’re worried about this, you may reach out to us for a free consultation and coaching.

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Coaching for Anxiety? What is it all about?

A belief that underpins coaching is that we have the resources we need to overcome the problem we’re facing. This means the role of a coach is not to tell you what to do, but instead work with you to identify your own solutions and guide you towards your goals.

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When you first start coaching, it’s important to tell your coach about any diagnoses you have and if you are undertaking any other treatment for your anxiety (for example, counseling). This will help inform your coach’s approach when working with you and can ensure you’re getting the best support.

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Coaching can take place face-to-face, online, via telephone or even in a group setting. For those with anxiety, this choice can be really helpful. If meeting people in person or traveling makes you anxious for example, you might prefer online coaching. 

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“With a good coach, any feelings of embarrassment or discomfort will disappear. The hardest part is making a decision to speak out and book to see someone. It gets easier from there on in.”

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In your first session, we may set some goals together. These could be around managing your anxiety or perhaps they’ll be things you want to do, but anxiety is currently stopping you from doing them. You may simply have a goal of better managing anxiety - whatever it is, having a clear destination in mind really helps the coaching process.

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Anxiety coaching sessions will often involve asking you questions to help you understand your anxiety better and identify more helpful responses when your fight, flight or freeze response is triggered. We may also work together to identify any limiting beliefs that are affecting your self-esteem and discover ways to change the narrative.

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The number of sessions you’ll need will depend on what you hope to achieve and how strong your intent is. The aim is to finish your work together feeling more empowered, in control and confident. Fear might always be along for the ride - but it doesn’t have to be in the driver's seat.

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It's not uncommon to be a little scared of the odd thing. Ideally life would be better without any fears at all, but when fears become severe enough to cause significant anxiety and interfere with normal life, they're called phobias. Phobia (from the Greek Phobos, meaning fear) is an intense fear of something, which in reality, poses little or no real danger. 

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If you have a phobia, you may realise that it's unreasonable, but you still can't control the effect it has on you. Simply thinking about it, can send you into a spin of anxiety, while being exposed to the object of your fear can be terrifying and overwhelming. Phobics will often go to any lengths to avoid the source of their fear. For example, a claustrophobic might turn down the job of their dreams if it means getting into a lift every day! In this way, fears and phobias can really stop you doing the things you want to or need to - even the simplest tasks may seem impossible. By restricting your choices, affecting your confidence and holding you back, fears and phobias can significantly reduce your ability to enjoy life. And, as it becomes increasingly difficult to experience a normal life, friends and family can be affected too. Often, fears and phobias can seem irrational to others and difficult to understand - this can create feelings of isolation and add further strain to relationships. 

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So if the fear is irrational, why does this happen? Fears and phobias are a reaction to an emotional or physical trauma or threat that occurred at some point, often way back in our past. The response was learned immediately, at once, rather than over time - this is known as ‘one step learning’ in NLP. Usually, this is self-preservation (the body’s way of keeping us safe). Even so, the unconscious mind can retain this response when we no longer need it. Sometimes, we don't even need to experience the source of the fear, just the mention of it or smells, sounds and pictures that remind us of it, are enough to set it in motion. Most of us are familiar with well-known phobias like fear of flying, spiders, open spaces, closed spaces, dentists, doctors, hospitals and needles. But there are literally thousands of fears and phobias including lots of seemingly irrational ones like velvet, yellow, rain, holes, trees and even sleeping. You can develop a phobia to virtually anything that exists! 

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Understanding your phobia is the first step to overcoming it and knowing that you are not alone can also be comforting - phobias are not uncommon. Another thing to realise is that fears and phobias are very treatable. They all follow the same pattern, regardless of whether the phobia has been experienced for a short or long time. This is beneficial when it comes to a successful outcome and makes it easier to remove than you might think. 

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Fears and phobias can be overcome quickly and easily, using proven NLP techniques. In essence, the unconscious mind of the phobic, creates a picture of the 'perceived threat' whenever they come into contact with the source of their fear (or sometimes just the idea of it). This triggers an immediate physical response. Using NLP techniques, we can help a phobic to change the mental picture and consequently change and remove the feeling (fear). This is done by working with the client in a highly-relaxed or altered state. The process involves identifying triggers, recoding the negative experience and extracting any significant factors that might be helpful. Following that, it is possible to put it behind you and move forward. 

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