Fear Mastery
by Andrew Bryant
Jo-anne could feel her pulse; it was pounding like a jackhammer in her left temple. Her palms were sweating and her stomach had that feeling like she was going to vomit, but she was compelled to watch the movie one more time.
Jo-anne wasn’t at the cinema, she was safely at home; the movie she was playing was in her mind. She could see everything so clearly, the check in, then the long wait to board with the growing anxiety and that feeling of dread, then the movie speeds up and she is sitting in the window seat looking at the other passengers, oblivious to the approaching danger and then - it happens!!!
Back in the safety of her home Jo-anne struggled to get a hold of her breathing and tells herself not to think about it again, but deep down she knows she just can’t help but play the movie over and over again.
Unless you have experienced a fear or phobia, Jo-anne’s story may appear unbelievable. Jo-anne used to have a fear of flying and the short description was how she felt for seven to ten days before a flight that she would have to take for her job.
Fear of flying is common, and so are fears of… public speaking, meeting people, commitment, success, failure, cold calling, criticism, ill health, death, closed places, confrontation, snakes, spiders…etc.
Fears are the thieves of our potential. Fear and phobias, whilst irrational, can feel so real as to paralyse us to do the very things that would give us success and happiness. Is there anything in your life that prevents you reaching your potential?
There is a Moorish proverb that says, “He who is afraid of a thing gives it power over him.”
Jo-anne had had enough and sought help to run the movie of her mind. Using techniques from Neuro-Semantics she learned how to erase the old movie and replace it with a movie that put her back in control. Have you ever hired a video or DVD and then realised that it was a really bad film? Would you hire it and play it again? Why is it then that when we have a bad experience we play that movie over and over and over again?
Simon worked as an accountant, he was good at his job but he hated to go to work. Simon was afraid of people, more specifically what people thought of him. When I spoke to him he was anxious because it would be his birthday soon and it was normal for the people at his office to have an afternoon tea for the birthday celebrants at which he would be required to say a few words. Simon was single, not surprising really when the thought of any social interaction caused him to run a horror movie in his head which consisted of people rejecting him before he had even opened his mouth.
When I wrote “The Street Guide to Flirting” I discovered that social phobia is more widespread than I would have ever imagined. It is common for people to wonder what other people will think of them. This is probably why Eleanor Rosevelt said; “ You would worry less about what people think of you – if you realise how little they did!”
Simon had a fairly extreme case of social phobia that took a bit of work to overcome but the reward was worth it. Most people experience some level of fear about something at some time in their life – remember exam nerves?
To overcome a fear it is important to realise that our fears are usually not about something ‘out there’ – in the world. Our reaction is usually to the movie we play in our mind about something. If you change the movie you change your reaction. Realising this is the first and powerful step to releasing your fear. FEAR is therefore an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real.
To de-power an internal movie you need to step back from it and create distance so that you realise it is only a movie. In addition if you change you movie to black and white you will find it has less power over you. You did know that you could change the quality of your internal movies – didn’t you? Editing our internal movies gives us power over our states of mind.
If you would like to erase a movie that has been playing over and over, follow these steps.
1. Start with a black and white, still frame that just precedes the start of your ‘fear’ movie.
2. With the movie in black and white and you distanced from it (as if you are in the projection booth), run the movie to the end, and keep on running it until you reach a pleasant scene (this might be quite some time after the original movie).
3. Step into the pleaseant scene, fully experience it.
4. Now run the movie backwards to the first still frame. It helps if you can make the whirring sound of a video recorder being fast rewound.
5. Step back into the pleasant scene and rewind the movie 5 or 6 more times.
This process has the effect of scrambling your neural association to this movie and frees you to make new meanings in your mind for what is empowering for you.
This is an abbreviated description of the fast phobia cure that is taught in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Neuro-Semantic (NS) practitioner trainings. If you know someone who is NLP or NS trained you can also ask them to run this pattern with you.
Jo-anne used this pattern to successfully overcome her fear of flying and Simon used it to reduce his fear of other people, they have discovered what Les Brown meant when he said, “Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
Realising that there is a way to release you fears, large or small, is now the time to let them go?
’’Come to the edge,’’ He said.
They said, ’’We are afraid.’’
’’Come to the edge,’’ He said.
They came. He pushed them... and they flew.
- Guillaume Apollinaire
Andrew Bryant is available for keynote presentations - click here for details.
Talk to one of our coaches about creating a wealth mind - click here.