“Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.”
Irrational fears.
How do I even begin to describe this? When the mere threat of danger, pain, or harm causes you to feel fearful. Irrational fears are threats of danger with no logic or rationale.
Let me name you three:
There is absolutely no sense, logic, or reason to this. In fact, it is downright irrational.
Is it possible that you’re afraid something that isn’t real? But phobias and irrational fears are very real and can cause issues in everyday life.
According to Psychology Today, “at least 60% of adults admit to having at least one unreasonable fear.” In the United States alone, 19.2 million adults suffer from phobias (source: the National Institute of Mental Health).
Fear, whether it’s a genuine threat or merely a phantom of the mind, has the power to shackle you. It lingers, a persistent specter that robs you of the chance to lead a vibrant, normal life.
Irrational fears are not something you’d be eager to share at a cocktail party or even admit to yourself.
But if you’re already familiar with your irrational fears or phobias and you’re eager to make a transformative leap, you can fast-track to the technique.
First, let’s unravel the mysteries of these intense, irrational fears. I’m talking about phobias—those irrational fears that grip you, unrelenting and excessive in their power.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has classified these phobias into three distinct categories:
Imagine the crippling fear of being scrutinized, judged, or humiliated by others. This is social phobia, also known as social anxiety disorder.
An all-too-common manifestation of this phobia is performance anxiety. Think sweaty palms before a speech, heart palpitations on the dance floor, or stage fright while playing a musical instrument before an audience.
The insidious nature of social phobias often leads to anxiety about failure long before the task begins.
These fears can be so overpowering that they paralyze individuals, preventing them from attending work, school, or accomplishing even the simplest of tasks.
Agoraphobia is the dread that one’s surroundings are perpetually perilous, with no clear escape route in sight. Those burdened by this irrational fear tend to steer clear of new places and unfamiliar situations.
Crowded areas, enclosed spaces, and public transportation all take on a menacing aura for someone grappling with agoraphobia.
Specific phobias are unrelenting and irrational fears triggered by specific objects, places, activities, or even individuals. These fears often tower disproportionately over the actual threat or danger posed.
Individuals grappling with specific phobias are frequently plagued by distress. They’ll go to great lengths to dodge the very objects or events that trigger their fears, contorting their lives in the process.
Ever wondered where those phobias and irrational fears lurking in the depths of your mind originated?
Believe it or not, they are learned behaviors, and understanding this crucial fact is the first step toward conquering them.
Stanley Rachman, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, outlined three ways you could have “learned” your phobia:
Think back to that time you placed your hand on a hot stove, and searing pain shot through your nerves. Your brain, in that moment, forged an unexpected connection between two seemingly unrelated things—the hot stove and agony.
This remarkable process of linking events is known as classical conditioning. It’s one way your irrational fears may have taken root.
During childhood, we’re like sponges, soaking up behaviors and reactions from those around us.
If, for instance, you witnessed your mother’s visceral fear of spiders, you might have unknowingly imitated her response, even if spiders posed no actual danger to you.
Words hold immense power, especially when conveyed to impressionable young minds. Studies have shown that feeding a child negative information can plant the seeds of phobias.
For instance, if a parent repeatedly emphasizes the danger of snakes, a child may develop a fear of these reptiles.
Rachman astutely observed that:
“Information-giving is an inherent part of child-rearing and is carried on by parents and peers in an almost unceasing fashion, particularly in the child’s earliest years.
It is probable that informational and instructional processes provide the basis for most of our commonly encountered fears of everyday life.”
While most of us unwittingly develop phobias during childhood, it’s essential to realize that not everyone who encounters negative experiences develops specific phobias.
Factors like traumatic events, biological predisposition, and learned habits from our parents can all play a role.
But here’s the good news: unlearning your irrational fears may seem daunting, but it’s entirely possible through a process of new learning.
There are many approaches when it comes to getting rid of your irrational fears. But none of them is as magical as this one.
Picture this: in just 15 minutes, you could wave goodbye to that phobia or irrational fear that’s been clinging to you for what feels like an eternity.
You see, the same mind that “learned” that irrational fear can unlearn it just as effortlessly.
It’s like reprogramming a computer, and it’s all thanks to a little gem known as the Rewind Technique, born from the genius of Richard Bandler, co-founder of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
Here’s how the Rewind Technique works: it rewires your traumatic memory, zapping those paralyzing emotions tied to the event that initially triggered your phobia.
But what makes this method truly stand out is that it doesn’t tinker with the symptoms; it goes straight for the root cause.
* NLP is a psychological technique for influencing your brain’s (Neuro) processing of the words you use (Linguistic) and how that impacts your past, present, and future (Programming).
Now, let’s be real for a second. Most other approaches out there make you confront your fears head-on, often turning it into a long, painful, and sometimes counterproductive ordeal.
Not the Rewind Technique, though. It’s all about obliterating the underlying pattern responsible for your irrational fears, and when that pattern is gone, so is the phobia.
Are you ready to toss those irrational fears aside and step into a fear-free future? If you are, here’s the script for the Rewind Technique, or, as I like to call it, the Fast Phobia Cure:
This technique* works by dissociating you from your phobia. You’ll be replaying your phobic experiences and “observing” them from the perspective of an audience or a third person.
1. Find a place where you can be comfortable, relaxed and without interruption. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. Recall a time in your life when you felt real joy.
2. Relax and allow your mind to access an event in your life where you felt genuinely happy. As soon as you feel joy fill your entire being, make a fist with your dominant hand.
3. Next, imagine yourself all alone in a cinema, seated comfortably and waiting in anticipation for a movie to begin. Allow yourself to feel safe and secure here.
4. As you look around, you can see a movie projector behind you and a huge screen in front of you. On the screen, you can see a version of yourself.
5. With your eyes still closed, imagine yourself floating out of your body and up to the booth where the projector is. From this position, you can see yourself sitting in a movie theatre watching a movie version of yourself.
6. Imagine that you have a remote control with you. This device will enable you to control the speed, sound, and color of your movie. Whenever you feel fear sneaking into your mind during this procedure:
7. From the projection booth behind the theatre, see yourself watching a movie of the time when you first experienced the phobia. Play this movie in black and white and watch it in its entirety. Once you have watched the entire film, rewind it to the beginning and watch it once more.
8. Using the remote control, watch it for the third time at a higher speed. You can watch this movie as many times as you need at a higher speed. Pause, rewind, or speed it up until you feel comfortable watching yourself experience the phobia.
9. Once you get a feeling of comfort and security, freeze the frame of the movie and black out the picture. Slowly float back into your body in the theatre seat.
10. Now, play the movie backward in full color. Run through the movie in backward motion as fast as you can. Then clear the screen by making the screen black and putting yourself back in at the end of the movie.
Repeat this as many times as necessary until you feel comfortable with the process. Once you feel comfortable with this process, create a movie of yourself in the future.
Imagine how different your life will be in the future. Visualize yourself attaining all of your goals and accomplishing everything you desire.
Take your time. When you feel completely safe and secure, you can open your eyes.
In the realm of the Fast Phobia Cure, there’s room for some creative customization to ramp up its effectiveness.
As you hit the replay button on your fear-inducing movie, consider spicing things up with these additions:
Now, here’s the million-dollar question: after this exercise, do you find yourself basking in a newfound sense of relaxation and empowerment, ready to embrace a more vibrant life?
A parting thought on the Fast Phobia Cure: even if you’re pretty darn sure it did the trick, why not put it to the ultimate test?
After all, I want to ensure that every last bit of those phobias and irrational fears has bid you adieu.
If heights were your Achilles’ heel, perhaps lean out of the window of a 5-story building and see how it feels.
*Disclaimer
The Fast Phobia Cure Script was created to assist my clients in conquering their fears. Though it can be used to work on phobias and irrational fears, the information offered here is solely for educational purposes only. By no means do I intend to establish a patient-therapist relationship by your use of this script.
Ever wondered why the Fast Phobia Cure works like a charm? Well, it’s all about a little thing called dissociation.
Imagine this: You’re watching a movie about your phobia. As those phobic scenes unfold on the screen, something fascinating happens.
You start to detach yourself from the fear, creating a gap between you and your irrational dread. But here’s where it gets even more intriguing:
You walk into the projector room and spot yourself sitting there in the theater seat. This is what we call “double dissociation”—watching yourself watch a movie about yourself.
It’s like a mind-bending movie conception.
Now, in this dissociative state, you’ve cleverly distanced yourself from the emotional rollercoaster of fear and trauma. And guess what?
Each time you hit that replay button on the movie of your phobia, the emotional punch weakens, especially when you watch it in classic black and white.
So, why does the Fast Phobia Cure pull off this vanishing act so effectively?
Well, it taps into the inner workings of your brain. Remember when you were learning to ride a bicycle? Every spin of those pedals created a neural pathway in your brain.
And with enough practice, those pathways became second nature, letting you cruise on autopilot. You didn’t need to re-learn how to bike every time you hopped on.
Now, think of your irrational fears in the same light. If you were terrified of spiders as a kid, your brain carved out a neural highway for that fear.
So, when you encounter a spider, bam! Automatic fear response, no questions asked.
But when you hit rewind on that fear-inducing movie, you essentially scramble the memories that fuel your phobias. It’s like obliterating those neural pathways, leaving your fears in the dust.
So, there you have it—your secret weapon in conquering phobias and irrational fears, the Fast Phobia Cure.
Your rational mind, the unsung hero, steps in to declaw those menacing memories, transforming them into mundane, harmless anecdotes.
As the emotional charge of fear dissolves, your once-dominant phobia withers away, like a storm losing its thunder.
And just like that, it becomes a relic of the past, no longer a part of your life.
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