Anxiety is a conditioned response, like Pavlov’s dog we can become conditioned to feeling constantly anxious because of trauma or dysfunction but many people suffer anxiety and don’t remember any particularly traumatic event so how can we stop anxiety when we don’t know where it’s coming from or identify what’s causing it?
It’s healthy to experience anxiety now and then, as I have said in other posts on my blog. Anxiety is part of the fight or flight response, its purpose is to keep us safe from danger, to give us the energy to either fight back or run away. With hypnosis anxiety can be eliminated easily and quickly by asking the client when they first experienced these feelings, what was happening in their lives at this time, releasing any negative charge to bad memories and then visualising ourselves the way we want to be.
Some people live in a constant state of anxiety, always worrying about and looking for things that could go wrong, it may be like they are addicted to worry and go from one crisis to the next. Our bodies can become addicted to worry and the stress hormones it releases.
So How Can We Stop Anxiety If We Don’t Know What’s Causing It?
There are many techniques I teach people suffering with anxiety, see my anxiety workshop to learn more about box breathing, 7/11 breathing, EFT and more.
Can Hypnosis Stop Anxiety When We Don’t Know What’s Causing It?
Unfortunately nothing can stop anxiety, we need it and there would be something wrong with us if we never experienced it but hypnosis can definitely be used to stop us suffering with anxiety.
Hypnosis Helps Anxiety In Many Ways
Hypnosis is very effective for anxiety sufferers because it increases mindfulness. When we are mindful we can start to detach from our feelings and thoughts, we start to see anxious feelings as separate from ourselves and are no longer controlled by them. By regularly practising mindfulness we can start to identify our triggers and learn healthier ways of coping with them.
Hypnosis can also be used to increase relaxation, the more we experience relaxation and the deeper we go into it the more our overall level of relaxation increases, the less addicted we become to worry and stress.
Hypnosis increases our ability to visualise, the mind cannot tell the difference between a real or imagined event and new neural pathways are created in our brain when we visualise ourselves behaving in specific ways or experiencing life differently. The more we visualise ourselves the way we want to be and life the way we want to experience it the stronger those neural pathways become and we can start behaving in new ways, experiencing new things without even realising it.
Inner Child Healing To Overcome Anxiety
Many of us grew up in less than ideal environments and don’t realise it because when we are children we internalise everything and think it is about us, until 18 months to 3 years we cannot even tell the difference between ourselves and the outside world. A baby sees everything as themselves pushed out and so is reliant on their parents to co-regulate their emotions. If their parents are anxious a baby will pick up on that and become anxious.
Once we start separating from our parents we need shame to keep us safe, it’s stops us wondering to far and lets us know when we need help but if our parents our constantly arguing, abusive to us or each other, criticising us rather than our behaviour, forcing us to take on family roles such as golden child, black sheep or scapegoat it will create toxic shame. Toxic shame will make us feel like there is something wrong with us, we will live in a constant state of unease and need to look outside ourselves to feel okay.
Dysfunction & Insecurities
Growing up with a dysfunctional family will cause us to develop all kinds of insecurities. As children we need to feel secure in our environment, we need to know we are going to get our needs met and know we can trust our caregivers. Dysfunctional families often think its funny to be sarcastic, put each other down and call each other names. When we grow up in such an environment it normalises dysfunctional behaviour and we think it’s a normal way to behave. I have a whole blog post on inner child healing to overcome insecurities and there is a workshop recording on my YouTube channel.
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