How To Reduce Anxiety | Ep 116

3, 2, 1. And we are live. Welcome to the next episode of the Self Belief Chief podcast. You're here with a life coaching author, David Holman. And today I want to talk about how to overcome the fear of pretty much anything. You know, whether it's a past mistake or disappointment that you've had, whether it's a, you know, bad experience, whether you have a phobia of something, whether you are looking to rediscover that. That version of you which is just able to deal with and overcome things. But something's been holding you back. I want to teach you an exercise here that can help you overcome any fear that you have in your life. And I've helped people when it comes to public speaking or sales or sport performance, many other things, to overcome fear, especially when we've had something in our past that might be holding us back. Okay, so whatever you've got going on in your life, I want to take you through an exercise right now, and I want you to do it with me. Ideally, if you can do it when you've got, you can listen to this. When you've got a bit of time, you know, you don't have to do anything else. You're free from distractions, because I promise you, this will be a very powerful tool for you, that if you sort of put in place and you do over and over again, maybe listen to this a few times, you will be able to overcome the disappointments of fears. Because I've seen this work enough times. Okay, so this is what I want you to do for me. First thing I want you to do is I want you to close your eyes. Okay? So if you can either do it maybe sitting down or, you know, lying down somewhere, if you've got a bit of time to do this exercise sitting down and lying down, just to relax. Okay, What I want you to do is I want you to breathe in deeply through your nose for maybe four seconds, hold, and then just breathe slowly out through your mouth. I want you to do that a few times. I want you to go, hold, breathe out, and I want us to do that two more times. As we do that breathing exercise, I want you to keep your eyes closed. I want you to look up into your eyebrows. Look up into your eyebrows for me. You should feel your eyes moving or fluttering ever so slightly. Okay? This is called rapid eye movement. Now keep up the breathing. Keep your eyes where they are. I just want to explain what we're doing. So rapid eye movement is the same thing that happens when you're sleeping. That's when your subconscious mind is completely open. You know, when you have those really realistic dreams and all this stuff comes out, that's your subconscious. And you're in a state of rem, or rapid eye movement. When you first wake up in the morning and everything can feel a little bit more anxious or a little bit, you know, bigger or whatever term you might use. That's because you're still in a state of rem then that you come out of that state and you come back into a more conscious state. So I just want you to relax your eyes now. Keep your eyes closed, but now just relax them down to a normal level, just so that we've opened the subconscious of just enough. What I want you to imagine doing now is I want you to imagine holding a lemon in your right hand. Imagine holding a lemon in your right hand. I want you to imagine taking a bite out of that lemon and what that tastes like when you have a lemon and you take a big bite, you can taste the sourness. You can actually feel the saliva building up in your mouth. Right? That's how powerful the subconscious mind is. When we open the subconscious mind, we can really access deep things. And now what I want to do is do an exercise with you to help deal with whatever fear you're struggling with right now. If it's something in your past, if it's a phobia, if it's a disappointment, whatever it might be. I want to go through this together, okay? So I want you to keep that breathing up. Just keep your breathing nice and relaxed. Sit down. Put your hands on your knees. Now, you might have an experience that knocked your confidence at some point. You're struggling to shake it. Okay? I want you to think of when you have that fear or anxiety, when you think about it, when it's at its worst, what would you score it out of 10? 10 being high, anxiety, zero being nothing. Okay, is it an 8? Is it a 9? Is it a 10 when it's particularly bad? Whatever score anything above 5 is, you know, it's more anxiety than you want or need. Okay? Whatever you picture in your mind when you're thinking about that anxiety or that fear or that past experience, I want you to imagine putting it up on a cinema screen in front of you. I want you to imagine sitting in the cinema, and this picture that you have in your mind of this anxiety, this fear, this disappointment, this setback is up on that cinema screen. And imagine you're watching in the audience. Now what I want you to do is, having seen it on the cinema screen. I want you to turn it into a cartoon. Whatever you're visualizing, turn it to a cartoon. Turn the characters into cartoons. Turn the environment into a cartoon drawing, okay? Give it, you know, strange colors and weird and wonderful colors. Okay? What I want you to do is just make it silly as possible. Just keep making a cartoon silly as possible. And if the characters say things to you or do things to you, whatever, just make. Give them silly noises. You know, whether it's one of the characters sounds like a pigeon instead, something really out of context. They're really ridiculous, right? Just. Just imagine, just, you know, these people, maybe they're cartoon animals instead, all of a sudden, you know, less threatening, less harmful. And now what I want you to do is I want you to imagine that episode as a cartoon with all those silly noises, the bright colors and everything. And now score that out of 10 in terms of how your anxiety feels when you imagine it as a cartoon. It should drop a little bit. Just a little bit. Just a little bit easier to digest, okay? Just a little bit easier to digest. And so now what I want you to do is think of how you would describe it. How would you describe this episode now that they're cartoons, now that they have weird noises and all that stuff? Okay, now I want you to move three seats further back in the cinema. We have three seats back. As you move three screens back, three seats back, and you keep this picture on the cinema screen, I want you to make the screen a little bit smaller. Just make the screen a little bit smaller. So you're sat further back and the screen is now a bit smaller. Okay? And now give anyone in the visualization a silly voice, something that makes you laugh, something that. Something different that puts a smile on your face. Okay? Now score that anxiety or that fear out of 10. And it should have just dropped just a little bit again. Now what I want you to do is I want you to play a silly tune in your head. Imagine the whole thing has got a silly tune, a theme song to it, as you visualize and hum it and just start visualizing it and actually hum it. Just feel that sound coming out of you as you hum it. I want you to feel this as a physical thing, not just a visualization, just something that just so out of context, so ridiculous, so silly. Now I want you to play the film, whatever the picture this episode is, I want you to play the film from beginning to end on the screen. So just imagine from start to finish, you've just made it really silly. This silly Cartoon. Play this silly cartoon forward with all the silly characters and the silly voices. Just keep playing that film. And once you've played it forward, I want you to play it in reverse. So from end to start. So once you've played forward, play the whole thing backwards as well. Now I want you to move three seats back again. Move three seats back again. And as you've moved further back, I want you to make the screen smaller again. Make the screen a bit smaller so you're further back in the cinema now and the screen has got smaller. Now I want you to play the film forward and back in full five times. Play it forward now. And just with the silly noises and the silly cartoon and, you know, the theme song behind it and all just very silly, very ridiculous. Even can put a smile on your face, even maybe makes, you know, gives you a chuckle or something like that. Now play it in reverse. Once you've played in reverse, play it forward again. And play in reverse again. Just distorting that picture over and over again, okay? It's the picture that holds all the emotions. If we distort the picture, we're going to change the emotion that's connected to it. Keep distorting that picture. Play it forwards and play it backwards. Play it forwards and play it backwards. Now, I want you to score that fear or anxiety out of 10. And you should have felt it. Just come down a little bit once again. And now what I want you to do is I want you to move further back from the screen. But now what you're going to do is you're going to move back and stand behind the projector that's playing the film, okay? And I want you to play that film in reverse. You're now in control of the projector. You're in control of the film. Play the film in reverse. Distort it. It's like scratching a record player. You scratch it enough, the sound changes. If we change this, scratch this picture enough, the picture changes and the emotion changes. See yourself as no longer in the film, but purely directing. You're holding on to the camera, the projector. You're behind all of this. You're so far away. The screen is tiny by this point because you're behind the projector and when you're ready, because you're now in control of this film that's had control of you, but no longer does. See, this film no longer controls your life. You control it. And you've distorted that picture so much that this will no longer hold any weight on you anymore. You are Good enough to overcome this. You are good enough to overcome this. You are good enough to overcome this. And I want you to start right now. When you're ready, in your own time, turn off the projector that's playing the film. Good. And now I want you to score the anxiety out of 10. And what you may well have found is that that anxiety, that fear, has just dropped again. Now, what I want you to do is you're standing behind that projector. Let's put in a different film, a film of what you want to achieve, whatever that is. What do you want to achieve? What do you want in your life? Whatever that is, put that film in and watch it on the screen from behind the projector. Look how amazing it is, how wonderful it is. Allow yourself to go there. Sometimes we protect ourselves by not really dreaming of what we really want. Because we're worried that if we go after it, what happens if we don't get it? Allow yourself today, give yourself the permission that you are deserving of happiness. I want you to play that film, and I want you to watch it and feel it as if you are living it. Now, from behind the projector, I want you to move forward three seats. The screen is bigger. Okay, what does the film sound like? What does it feel like? What does it even smell like? When you have all of this stuff, as if it was real, how would you engage all of that? Not just what does it look like, but actually if you were in it, if that in fact was your life, imagining that you no longer. You've purely overcome this fear, and you have this new, beautiful thing in your life, whatever it is. Now I want you to move forward three seats again, and I want you to play the film again with the screen even bigger. You have no peripheral vision by this point because the whole thing is right in front of you. And now I want you to move forward three seats. You're sat in the front row. You're almost touching the screen. And when you're ready, I want you to step into the picture and be in the film. And it being your life, this thing, whatever it is that you're looking for, that you want now you're in it. What does it sound like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? Now, whatever this film looks like, give this experience, this state, a color, color you associate with this from now on, every time you think of this color, it will bring you into this state. This state where you've overcome your fear, and this state where what you want, you are deserving and you are good enough to have it, because you are. I want you to think of the color, and I want you to think of that thing that used to be a fear. And every time you've got that picture of that fear, I want you to put your hand out and I want you to really quickly bring in this new picture and go, whoosh. Every time you think of the fear, Whoosh. Bring in this new picture that breaks the small picture of this fear and brings in this new, bright, colorful experience of this thing that you really want. Every time you think of it, this fear, this. The color comes to you. Whoosh. And you think of this new experience. You can break the pattern whenever you want to, but you no longer have to fear. You no longer have to worry. You've overcome your fears because you are good enough to have overcome them. And together we'll have adjusted your vision going forward. Okay, now open your eyes for me. Now, this might be something that you want to listen to a few more times just so that you can really get involved, get really immersed in it. Maybe another time where you've got a little bit more time to do it so that you can really break that fear. Such a powerful exercise, and I hope you've enjoyed listening to this. I hope it's had an effect already or had a benefit, and that you feel a little bit different, feel a little bit more relaxed. The soreness and the pains in your body that you had, maybe they've gone as well to a certain degree, because you're calm, you're relaxed, you're free. You're finally free because you're good enough to be free. My name is David Holdman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day, enjoy the rest of your life wherever you are, and I'll speak to you again soon.