Anxiety and Avoidance – Hypnotherapy in Ely Vlog
The number one strategy that people employ to deal with anxiety is avoidance. Avoid the anxious thing or escape from that situation and you start to feel better. Yet this comes with it’s own problems that I talk about in this video. Have a watch here:
Anxiety And Avoidance:
Hello, it’s Dan here. I hope you’re good today. In a recent video I talked about the anxiety equation which demonstrates that it’s not necessarily a thing we’re anxious about that causes the anxiety but rather our beliefs, our expectations, our thoughts, our feelings about the thing. For example with public speaking, it’s not actually public speaking itself that causes the anxiety per se, it’s the worries about what people might think, or it going wrong, or forgetting what you’re going to say, which is true of every anxiety and fear, whether that’s fear of flying, social anxiety, driving, swimming in deep water, job interviews.
Whatever is causing the anxiety, it’s your thoughts, beliefs, expectations, the kind of stuff going on inside of your head which, as I explained last time, is good news because we can do stuff around those things. If it was flying causing the anxiety, and there was nothing we could do about that and that was the same for everybody, then obviously we would all be very stuck with anxious thoughts and feelings in those kinds of situations.
We know that isn’t the case which really is good news. What I wanted to mention today was one of the key things that goes with anxiety is avoidance and escape. So not going into those situations, that’s your beliefs, your expectations, your thoughts and feelings, lead you to believe what caused those anxious feelings, those kind of patterns, those habits and behaviour, situations where you felt anxious before, what people tend to do is just avoid those things and I know, certainly, when I used to suffer with anxiety and social anxiety, that was one of the key things I did. I would avoid those social situations. I would call in sick if I was supposed to be doing a presentation because my fear and anxiety got so great, because I was worried about what people might think, or it going wrong, or looking stupid in some way, or not feeling I was good enough in some way. I would try to avoid those things, or if I couldn’t avoid them I would try to escape as soon as possible. How could I deflect my role in that presentation or that meeting, how could I get out of here as soon as possible, just nipping out to get my coat or whatever, or nipping to get something from the car and not going back. I would do that kind of stuff but the problem with avoidance and escape, which is often the number one strategy with anxiety, is it gives a kind of negative reinforcement.
You feel good from getting out of that situation. When I get out of that situation I get a sense of relief, if I can escape from that environment or that situation in any way, it’s a sense of relief and makes it more likely that you’ll do that in the future. So certainly tackling that is a key part of tackling anxiety so that you don’t need to escape, so that you don’t need to avoid those things, so that you can do the stuff that you want to be doing in a way that’s comfortable for you, which means that this is where hypnosis and hypnotherapy really come into their own because they can help you to be able to do that.
But beforehand, it’s priming your mind, giving you the tools and coping strategies, priming your mind for it to go okay and knowing you can handle and deal with whatever;s okay. If there are elements around inner confidence, self esteem, if it’s about feeling calm and confident or comfortable in some way, if it’s about dealing with the kind of thoughts going on in your mind, or certain feelings, there are ways to tackle all those things. Certainly by doing that means if you want to do something you can go and do it, whatever that might be, a social situation, flying, swimming, driving on motorways, interacting with people, going to interviews, whatever those things, even just day-to-day things, feeling just more comfortable in yourself, just getting on with life, which is certainly a much nicer place to be than having to escape or trying to avoid stuff or hoping stuff doesn’t happen, or negatively kind of making yourself feel better because you don’t do that stuff.
So, like I say, it’s a much better place to be and certainly something that hypnotherapy can help you with, so that you can, like I say, get on with doing those things, feeling more comfortable, feeling happier, feeling better, and really enjoying life. So really be aware of the fact that if you avoid stuff, if you escape stuff, it could inadvertently be strengthening those kind of anxiety associations and reinforcing those patterns that you don’t want to be experiencing.
Really do be aware that there are ways to tackle those things, to give you the skills, the techniques, the strategies, the coping mechanisms, to prime your mind for it to go okay, to know you can handle whatever comes up, to feel okay with the uncertainty and to just feel comfortable in yourself which is a much happier, much nicer place to be and somewhere I would really love for you to get to. I will leave you with that, be aware of it, know you can do something about it, get in touch if I can help with that. Enjoy life, feel good, enjoy being you and get on with seizing those opportunities and, in the meantime, take care of yourself and I will speak to you very soon.
Dan Regan
8th July 2020
Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket
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