I began my hypnotherapy practice in 2018 and for the first two years I made a loss, I was paying out rent for therapy rooms and had advertising costs. I didn’t give up because I am stubborn, I wanted to do something meaningful with my life, to help people. Due to my own experiences I knew the power of hypnotherapy and so I stuck with it. I subsidised my hypnotherapy business by delivering fast food.
In 2020 the lockdowns began and I seized the opportunity to move my hypnotherapy business online. I created a meetup group and posted my first online workshop, “overcome anxiety with hypnosis”. From that first workshop I booked more clients than I had ever booked and my hypnotherapy business suddenly became profitable.
To date I have given hundreds of workshops and expanded the topics to include inner child healing, improving relationships, increasing confidence and self esteem. My latest workshop is improve public speaking with hypnosis.
The benefits of Improving your public speaking abilities are endless. Public speaking will allow you to spread your message, show confidence/competence at work, increase confidence in all aspects of your life, promote a new business, sell more products or services, make an impact in the world, improve your employment prospects, make more money, recruit new clients and much more.
A Very Common Fear
A phobia of public speaking is also known as glossophobia, it’s a very common phobia which affects the majority of people, estimates say 76% of people fear speaking in public. Being the centre of attention in a group might trigger ancient survival instincts. In ancient times putting yourself out there, speaking up may have been seen as a challenge to the alpha which could have resulted in physical injury, banishment and rejection from the tribe. Rejection from the tribe would have resulted in being left to fend for yourself and probably death by starvation or being eaten by world animals.
Glossophobia could also be caused by:
- A fear of judgement which can come from childhood, growing up with constant criticism or bullying. Being made to feel that what you say doesn’t matter.
- Previous public speaking trauma, embarrassing or difficult public speaking situations may have created lasting anxiety.
- Lack of confidence: Doubts about your abilities or knowledge on the subject matter. Confidence comes from successfully repeating a task over and over again. If you have never spoken in public before it is natural to feel fearful about it.
- Fear of failure: Worrying about forgetting what you want to say, people not being interested or making mistakes.
- Social anxiety: General discomfort in social situations will probably extend to public speaking.
When a person experiences fear they will naturally move into the fight or flight response which can cause physical symptoms like blushing, sweating or rapid heartbeat. Focusing on these symptoms, trying to suppress them will increase anxiety. What resists not only persists but becomes stronger.
How Can Hypnotherapy Help?
Having already used hypnotherapy to overcome anxiety, a fear of blushing and increase my confidence I knew hypnotherapy could help me overcome a fear of public speaking. About 50 people joined the Zoom call on my first talk. Naturally I was anxious at first but thanks to hypnotherapy I was able to remain mindful, push through and give a successful presentation.
Release Trauma
I used hypnotherapy to release trauma from previous public speaking failures. My biggest previous public speaking failure resulted in five hundred people laughing at me, it was a disaster. I used this PTSD recording to release the trauma from that and other negative public speaking experiences.
A Real Or Imagined Event
Your mind can’t tell the difference between a real or an imagined event. I was able to use hypnotherapy to relax and imagine myself the way I wanted to be. I imagined myself remaining calm whilst giving an engaging and well received presentation. This visualisation actually created new neural pathways in my brain so when it came time to give the talk I performed exactly as I had visualised myself.
Unexpected Benefits
Overcoming my fear of public speaking didn’t just allow me to build a location independent business and travel the world whilst positively impacting people’s lives. By changing one part of a system we change all parts, overcoming my fear of public speaking allowed me to improve my self image, increase my overall confidence and become better socially.
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