Phobias. Time to stop suffering in silence.

Hi, my name's Caroline, and this is the next in a series of video clips I've been putting together to help people make changes in their lives that are preventing them from enjoying life to its absolute full. We've done clips on insomnia, on weight loss, so if you're interested in either of those areas, please feel free to have a look on YouTube, or the clips are up on my website as well. Which is addingzest.com. But today, we're here and I'd love to talk to you about phobias. Because in the years that I've been working as a clinical hypnotherapist, it's become really evident to me that phobias is one of these things that people don't like to talk about. It's often really embarrassing. When it's mentioned, it's often with a kind of, bit of a nervous chuckle. Oh, I'm scared of this, or I'm scared of that. Because people are embarrassed. Because quite often, people rationally know that whatever is scaring them can't hurt them, but that doesn't stop them having an extreme fearful reaction to whatever their phobia is about. So, I'd like to break that ice, open, open the door and say, right, let's, let's talk about this. Let's get it out in the open, because there is a solution, and actually a very easy one. So, a phobia. Phobia is actually the Greek word for fear, but it's very different to fear that we experience in many other ways. If, for example, a spider was to run across the floor in front of me here, it may make me jump, I may feel my heart suddenly race, but as soon as I realised what it was and that initial surprise was over, my heart would calm down, I'd be absolutely fine about it. With phobia though, it creates a very heightened state of anxiety. I'm sure anyone watching this who has arachnophobia, their phobia may even prevent them going into a room if they know that there's the risk of a spider being in there. So it's a constant state of alert, it's a constant wariness of risk leading to the normal physical anxiety and fear response, heightened Um, pulse, as we said, your heart goes faster, adrenaline pumps around the body, and when that's happening all the time, it tends to make people very tired. It's like the body waiting to run or fight that, fight that dragon, whatever that monster is, but actually there's nothing there to fight all the time, and it can be absolutely exhausting. 2 main categories of phobia. There's what we call the simple phobias, and these tend to be towards objects, Or creatures. And there's what we call the social phobias— illnesses, phobias of space, whether they're open spaces or confined spaces. But almost it doesn't matter what the category is. The important thing is these phobias restrict people's lives. And if you do have a phobia, as a large percent of the population actually do, What often you will experience is that phobia slowly gets worse. If you imagine a child does something right, you praise it. That child thinks, oh, okay, that works, I'll do that again. It reinforces that behaviour. That's exactly the same with a phobia. If you have a fear, let's say a fear of dogs, easiest way to avoid that fear... Is to avoid dogs. Is to not go anywhere near dogs. And then the part of the brain that's experiencing that phobia goes, that works, that's great, we'll do that even more. And a phobia that might have started off with just small dogs goes to bigger dogs, goes to all dogs, goes to, well, actually, I'll not go out of the house in case there's a dog there. So a common reaction for any phobia is that it escalates. And when that escalation becomes so extreme that the embarrassment actually sets in as well, people don't like to admit, like, I can't actually go out of the house because, you know, I don't like dogs. And it's that embarrassment as well, as a grown adult, that often prevents people from taking the steps to overcoming that phobia, that fear. Doctors, of course, can treat anxiety and do so very well with the range of drugs that are out there, but many people don't feel that they can go to doctors in the first place, again admitting that embarrassment Or perhaps don't want to spend a lot of time taking drugs. The other common thing, and a lot of reason why people actually come to me to help them with their phobia, is that you pass it on. We're going to talk a little bit later on in the next clip about how phobias are created, because when you know how it happens, it often starts to help you understand, which is the first step to actually overcoming the phobia. But again, back to imagining That little child, when they see their mum or their dad run away every time they see a spider, a dog, whatever it may be, their little innocent subconscious mind goes, oh, that's what we do when we see a spider or a dog. And so it's very easy for phobias to be passed on. So, if you're phobic of anything, it's impinging in any way in your life, I've got something that I can talk to you that will help you. But also, be aware that if you are phobic, you may well be passing that fear, that anxiety level, onto your children, and they in turn are likely to experience an escalation in that phobia. So, if you're interested in learning more about how phobias are created, and also then how hypnotherapy can be used to overcome those phobias, please stay tuned. There's going to be another clip coming out very shortly that will take us on to the next stage of those conversations. Thanks for listening.