Phobias and Traumas
Phobias and Traumas. Picture these situations as vividly as you can, as we speak. Take your time and don’t rush into them. You can also do them at different times and write down your experiences with each manifested situation.
Situation 1:
- You’re about to go on stage and deliver your first public speech to an audience of 500 people.
- You knew this was going to happen and have been preparing for over a week now.
- You have this.
- Or do you?
Situation 2:
- You’re having a conversation with friends, the usual stuff.
- You’re sipping on your coffee and are enjoying your time with them.
- Then suddenly, someone touches a topic that’s sensitive to you.
- It jogs back memories from your past, memories that you don’t want to re-visit, and ones that you’ve hidden from others.
- Wait, you thought you were over them. Or are you?
Situation 3:
- You’re taking the elevator to the 22nd floor of this high-rise glass building.
- The elevator is all fancy.
- It’s made of glass and lets you look at everything around and beneath you.
- Only, you don’t want to look.
- Check your palms.
- Are they sweaty?
- Did you skip a beat during any of the situations?
- What about your breath?
- Are you breathing faster than before the visualization?
Most of us become anxious when we are forced to face situations that are outside our comfort zone.
- Now, these situations might be anything, from the ones we’ve listed above to something that might be more personal and only known to you.
- But most of us are vulnerable to triggers that bring back unwanted thoughts; fears, traumas, and phobias included.
- These memories can bring back pent-up emotions that have been suppressed for a long.
- They can consume you for no immediate and logical reason.
These triggers are enough to let anxiety take over.
- If something as random as a simple conversation or an everyday routine can fill up the tank of anxiety in you, then it shouldn’t be ignored anymore.
- If anxiety is taking over your life, then the only way you can truly start healing is to turn around and confront your demons.
- Before you start looking for treatments (and we don’t mean to undermine the effect of medications on anxiety), take a moment to pause.
- Pause and look at the situation that is causing the anxiety.
- Is it fear, trauma, or phobia you didn’t realize you had or have left unaddressed for long?
Anxiety Doesn’t Exist in Isolation
- While it is tempting to think of it this way and distance it, it simply isn’t true.
- There is always a bigger picture, several perhaps, and there are all connected.
- Take time to reflect on the issues that are floating around and inside your subconscious mind.
- Tug at the issues and see what comes of it.
- You might be surprised to unravel a host of emotions and pent-up memories that might ultimately lead you to the peace you’ve been wanting.
Re-visit and visualize the very situations that act as triggers.
- Observe yourself and your reactions to the situation.
- Make peace from the fact that whatever the fear, this time it isn’t happening for real.
- Think of this as a chance to re-write those situations to give it the ending you’d like it to have.
- Your anxiety has a voice.
- Listen to it.