From Traumatic Times To Peaceful Minds

"The best thing about the past is that it's over"

-Richard Bandler, Co-Developer of NLP

This weeks tip comes to you in the spirit of Halloween, which is today here in the States. Halloween has become a holiday that is based primarily on two things, candy and fear.  This article will be focusing on the latter. If the candy part is more of a problem for you, you may want to check out one of my recent articles titled How To Actually Lose Weight & Keep It Off.  

I was sharing with a friend recently the irony of how, on days like Halloween, people often fork out money to scare themselves, and then they turn around and pay me to help them overcome their fears in life... it's a strange world out there.  In this article I'm going to be talking about a specific kind of fear that is generated from a trauma; known as either a phobia, or as post traumatic stress disorder(PTSD).  

Besides being a coach, I am also a certified practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming(NLP), which is a personal change technology that is particularly adept at overcoming and eliminating fears and traumas quickly and permanently. So in this article I'm going to be speaking from my expertise in this field.  

Alright, my handy dictionary defines a trauma as, "An extremely distressing experience that causes severe emotional shock and may have long-lasting psychological effects."  So, in other words, something really scary and potentially life threatening happens, our emotions and physical sensations get peaked to the max, and then there's what we call an imprint or an anchor that is formed.  This simply means an association is formed between the emotional state at the time of the event, and an external trigger. For example if somebody were to get into a serious scary car accident, afterwards, the person may associate cars with fear, so that every time they see a car, or get in a car they experience that fear again. This is also true of positive emotions.  Our strongest memories are formed based on our strongest emotional experiences.

Next, let's briefly distinguish what fear is in this context (if you want a longer, more detailed discussion, check out my past article titled The Source of All Fear). It's important to make the distinction that all fear is being generated not from the external circumstance, but from our thinking.  If there was actually an inherently scary situation, then every single person in that situation would experience the same fear.  We know right away that that is not true, because if you talk to trauma victims, they very often have completely different experiences and emotions.  Another way of looking at it is that we can only ever experience our thinking not our circumstances.  The external trigger can only set off the thought process.  A famous psychologist once said, "Whether there is actually a poisonous snake by my foot, or I just think there is, I react the same."  It's the thinking that makes all the difference.  

Our thoughts aren't just generating the fear either, they are keeping that traumatic experience alive in the present moment. When the crash has past, or the battle is over, or the spider is gone; replaying the event over and over again in our minds keeps us trapped in the trauma.  If you have ever been traumatized, or know somebody that has, you'll recognize just how debilitating this can be for people.  

Now for the cool part.  Most people actually learn to be traumatized based on a single experience, often referred to as 'one-trial learning.'  What most people don't immediately recognize is that this is actually a testament to how quickly the mind can learn something really well. So think about somebody who has a phobia of elevators.  If you talk to them, you'll figure out that they likely had one bad experience, and then they have never ever forgotten to be afraid of elevators since then.  You don't hear about elevator phobics accidentally getting in an elevator and then half-way up remember to be afraid.  No, it is 100% of the time, every time.  This capacity to learn very quickly and very well, means that we can actually learn a new response just as quickly!   All you need are the tools and some know how!

Okay, let's look at how to actually create a new more empowering response.  We know it's all in our heads, but what then?  Well, the first thing to recognize is that there is a method to the madness.  There is a structure to your internal experience and how you are currently 'doing' fear.  In order to create fear, you actually need to replay your memories in a very specific way.  In other words it's not just the content that you are playing back; what we call the submodalities, things such as the size, brightness, speed, direction, and association of the images have a huge impact on how scared we get, or if we even get frightened at all.  Because our experience is based on our thinking, I can actually guide people through a process and literally create a new experience for them by changing the submodalities.  Often times simple one-trial trauma's and phobias can be cleared up in a single hour long session.  I recommend that you not try this on your own without the supervision of a professional so as not to re-experience the trauma unnecessarily.  So, if this is relevant for you, or someone you know, please contact me and we can schedule a session to actually guide you through the process.  *Note: This is not immersion therapy where somebody is slowly introduced to the stimulus over a period of time and attempting to desensitize them to it. Having people re-play the trauma is what's causing the problem, not the solution!*

Also, a word of warning, anything to do with repetitive trauma over time often has a much more complicated structure that takes more time to work through. 

Have a very happy Halloween, and remember that the fear really is all in your head!

Until next week, have fun and live from you essence.

Love and Light,

Coach Ty