Using hypnotherapy I was able to stop blushing. As someone with red hair, fair skin and anxiety issues blushing was once a big problem for me. My fear of blushing caused me to avoid meeting new people until eventually I became very isolated and I tried to avoid social contact completely this meant I struggled to form relationships and had very few friends.
How Did It Become A Problem?
I have red hair and as you probably know if you are reading this fair skinned people tend to blush very easily anyway. I also grew up in a very dysfunctional environment where I was constantly being narcissistically abused, as I discuss here when we are children we are looking to the people around us to understand the world and ourselves.
If we are constantly being attacked and put down, told we should have been a girl by our parents we internalise that abuse and think it means there is something wrong with us. I developed huge amounts of toxic shame and would blush at the slightest bit of discomfort, this blushing would then be pointed out to me making me conscious of it until it became a triggered response and something else to be ashamed of.
Pavlov’s Dog
In my workshops I often talk about Ivan Pavlov and his dogs, it perfectly explains my problems with blushing and why blushing becomes a problem for so many people. Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who wanted to do some research into Dog Saliva so he got some dogs, tied them up and would spray meat powder into their faces making them salivate.
I am guessing he sprayed the dogs with meat powder at timed intervals and used an alarm to remind him because after a while he noticed he didn’t need the meat powder anymore, the dogs would salivate when they heard the bell and this created the theory of conditioned response.
For me like many anxiety sufferers my blushing issues worked the same way, I blushed when meeting a new person or when I became anxious, people teased me for it making me feel worse (just telling someone they are blushing even when they aren’t is enough to cause blushing) and the next time I was in that situation it would happen again so I became conditioned to blush in certain situations.
Anxiety Causes More Blushing
I would worry about blushing and try not to but this made it worse because it caused me anxiety and anxiety causes blushing. People think that blushing means we are attracted to someone or embarrassed about something. Blushing can be caused by many things such as changes in room temperature or spicy food.
The negative voice in my head, my inner critic would call me names when I blushed. It would tell me people thought I fancied them, call me an idiot and make me worry about it more. Problem blushing is made worse by stress and anxiety, we become anxious about blushing and then blush because we are anxious. When we blush due to stress or anxiety it’s because we are moving into the fight or flight response so worrying about blushing is a great way to make it worse.
Focusing On The Blushing Makes It Worse
“What you resist will not only persist but grow in size” – Carl Jung. There is a theory that our minds cannot delete a negative, if you are telling yourself “don’t blush, don’t blush,” your mind is hearing the word blush and so delivers what it thinks you want more of. Like a beach ball held under water the more we try to suppress a feeling or reaction the more significance and energy we are giving it and the stronger it will come back.
With Hypnotherapy I Was Able To Stop Blushing
With hypnotherapy I have been able to overcome many things that were once major issues for me including, these issues include blushing. Using hypnotherapy and mindfulness I was able to quieten my inner critic, reduce my anxiety levels and in one hypnosis session blushing completely stopped being a problem for me.
Stop Blushing Hypnosis Session On YouTube
Using hypnosis I was able to switch my focus away from the blushing and completely break the pattern. Because I know what a horrible problem blushing is I created a free hypnosis recording for my YouTube channel and a very reasonable priced course which can be found here.
If you would like to find out more about how you can stop blushing with hypnotherapy and book a one to one session with me you can schedule a time via this page.
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