Is Fear overly active in our minds?
Fear can save our lives, but it can also place massive limitations on our lives if we let it dominate.
Our minds operate based on learned experiences. From the day we are born, our brains are creating neural pathways, and using these pathways by applying them to new responses we encounter. Neural pathways become adaptive and help form new neural pathways for the new response.
If the way our brain works is by being adaptive, using responses previously learned and applying them towards new situations, then it’s very important we pay attention to what our brains are using.
If we allow fear to start to dominate our minds and our minds start applying it to more and more new responses, before we know it we will be living our life from a highly fearful perspective.
It doesn’t help either that in today’s world, we are constantly fed news from the media which focuses highly on murder, atrocity and violence. We watch horror movies and movies that contain high levels of tension and violence. We play games that also contain high levels of murder and killing. Is it any wonder many of us have brains that are wiring its neural pathways around fear?
Sever fear and fear that is considered phobic usually has its origins in one or 2 severe events. Our brains can then start to wire its neural pathways around new events with many of our new responses having the old fear learning factored in.
Is fear limiting your life?
Are you afraid to try something new due to the fear of failure?
You might not want to try improve your life by applying for a new job for instance, due to the fear of being unable to do it, or fear you may not be able to perform well in the interview.
Do you have a fear of losing control?
Maybe you don’t want to go out on dates to meet a partner through the fear of rejection, or fear you may get hurt?
We are creatures of habit, maybe you just have a fear of change? You may be limiting your life options as you cling to the familiar, terrified of the unknown?
Your fear might even just be in driving on motorways or driving in busy traffic where the roads may be unfamiliar to you, again a fear of the unfamiliar?
Fear can be riddled all through our life choices and we are just allowing it to happen. Fear really can be such a debilitating emotion, that our unconscious mind is building more and more into our every thoughts.
As I said in the opening line though, fear can have its uses. You may be standing, with a gang of people running at you with weapons. In a situation like this, you want your mind to fire the fear response; you want a reaction that’s going to make you get away from that situation as fast as humanly possible.
Fear can have its place, however we need to be more conscious of how fear is effecting our lives. Is your mind using fear in way to many inappropriate situations? Is your neural pathways all forming in ways that fear is overly present?
We can change our minds however. Neural pathways are forming all the time and we can break these patterns. The mind is highly resourceful, and old neural pathways can be broken down and new ones formed just as quickly as the old ones formed.
We learn through repetition. What we repeat strengthens the neural pathways; this is why habits form so easily. Really everything we do and become good at, is based on the mind looking for familiar learned responses. It will then apply these responses to the immediate event or challenge, and form new responses to manage similar events in future. The more we repeat, the better we get and the stronger the neural pathways become.
With this knowledge, we can break down these fearful responses. This is why facing your fears and pushing through them, breaks down the old neural pathways and creates new ones. These will then in turn cause all the old fearful reposes to break down.
Trying to push through fear though can be hard. Especially when we have phobic responses. The fear may be deep rooted in the mind and attached to events that may even be traumatic.
Hypnosis and NLP however is incredibly powerful with these sort of problems. People with fears and phobias can have incredible results through hypnosis. With hypnosis, we can quickly change the ways we think. We can change the beliefs around the deeper rooted trauma, and help form the new neural pathways using our powerful creative imagination around the desired state we wish to achieve.
We don’t need to live in fear; we don’t have to be living with limiting beliefs or limiting responses to events. Without fear, in the inappropriate moments, we could bring much reward and prosperity into our lives. Doing the things we have always dreamed of doing, but have been allowing fear to quash these dreams.
As a hypnotherapist based in Cambuslang, Glasgow, I have helped many people overcome fears and phobias using hypnosis. If you are struggling to break these old responses down. Struggling to overcome the limiting beliefs your mind is firing at you, feel free to contact me and we can work together to get your life on a much more positive path.