Fears & Phobias

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Fear is Logical

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Fear is your subconscious primordial state of noticing that things are going wrong, and that you are running out of options.

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When your mind has exhausted all ideas for action, you feel paralysed because you don't not know what to do. Fear is the unknown. Not knowing makes us helpless when things go wrong.

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But fear is actually very rational. Your subconscious mind uses previously accumulated information (accurate or otherwise) to decide whether a situation is safe or dangerous, and based on your past experiences, you feel safe or fearful. An incident of near drowning may cause a rational fear of water or swimming.

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Phobia is Illogical

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Phobias occur when your subconscious mind associates a certain non-related object, place, or animal with an actual fearful experience, which has been forgotten.

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In order to remember important information about your environment, your subconscious mind represents forgotten fearful events as symbols, hence the tenet: phobias are irrational.

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A person with a phobia for water, may in the past have experienced stomach cramps and panic while swimming, due to having eaten too much prior to swimming. The person forgets or dose not understood the reason for the cramps, and only remembers the feeling of panic, which in the subconscious mind, is symbolised by large expanses of water. The resulting behaviour is an anxious, phobic reaction when any suggeson is made involving lakes or swimming pools.

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Fearful and phobic behaviour is debilitating. You may have to avoid certain activities that are important for your life style or that you would usually enjoy, like swimming, flying, or driving. Sometimes unconnected activities that you used to find enjoyable can become subconsciously associated with your phobia. In this case, the feeling of anxiety seems to spread to these other areas of your life, and depression may result.

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Exam Stress

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Even if you know your subject and you prepared well, anxiety or panic during an exam can block information from your conscious mind, resulting in an unfair score instead of an accurate measure of your ability.

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Exams judge you, regardless of your performance before or after the test. Subconsciously, your mind sees an exam in primordial terms: What you are doing is familiar, but this time the consequences are more serious than usual.

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In your wild subconscious mind, you know how to balance, walking along a fallen tree trunk on the ground. Some time later in life, you may have your skill tested by crossing a river using a fallen tree as a bridge. During an exam, your subconscious mind triggers adrenaline, to increase awareness, balance, and body strength, but this is of little benefit to you, sitting in an exam hall. In fact, it increases the problem: the enforced lack of movement causes anxiety - hence fidgeting or leg bouncing. Adrenaline and anxiety block the memory from functioning. And then:

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I panicked!

I knew the work but my mind went blank!

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If this has ever happened to you, your subconscious mind remembers the experience, and anticipates the same anxiety in your next exam. Anticipatory anxiety actually creates anxiety out of nothing but fear.

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This is a subconscious survival strategy designed to for-warn you about what is to come, but it doesn't help with your studying!

• It makes studying very difficult, the mind wonders, you become easily distracted
• You put off studying until the last minute
• You then have even more anxiety in the exam because you have not been able to study
• The cycle repeats, gaining momentum every time

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The only way to break the cycle is:

• learning and applying the skill of directing your mind
• re-establish good recall and efficient access to your memory
• overcoming your anxiety and anticipatory anxiety by learning a new habit

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The NBSR treatment of exam stress

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NBSR Hypnotic Sound Recordings, Durban

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Having an affirmation is great - if you use it every day. Do you sit and close your eyes and spend 10 minutes visualising, working on The New You every day?

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What would you do if you were offered a business opportunity with a Chinese company, and you knew it would be a great advantage if you spoke enough Mandarin for greetings and small talk?

• First prize would be a teacher, close second, and you would probably do them both, would be a CD
• Listening to the language over and over, it becomes familiar to you
• Speaking the language every day, you would never forget it

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Your brain needs to repeat a new circuit for it to become a habit. When you teach yourself to be more calm, or more motivated, it's just like learning a new language - and you can do this by listening to your affirmation from your phone.

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Hypnosis and Effective Affirmations

Hypnosis allows information to bypass the firewall of your critical thinking, and become accepted by your subconscious mind. In most cases, hypnosis is necessary, because your subconscious is very protective over your belief systems. For a belief to change, neuro-plasticity requires the formation of a new circuit, which can only happen with the acceptance of the subconscious defences. If the new belief is perceived in any way to be a threat to your existing belief systems, your mind will defend itself, and reject the new belief, even if it was highly beneficial, or enabled your survival.

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The easiest way to achieve hypnosis is to be hypnotised by a professional Hypnotherapist. Self hypnosis is equally effective, but takes some practice. There are also some tools one can use to deepen hypnosis, and to stabilize the state. 

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