Is it time to unwind from anxiety?
It’s feels quite curious in a way that so many of us are more prone to anxiety than at any other point in history. When we look at the stresses we face (which is significant and real), it can’t be worse than the doom of war, pestilence and famine that was ever-present for us in the past?
So what are we all so stressed about?
Don’t worry, I’m not here to tell you your anxiety symptoms aren’t real.
Or that there’s nothing to worry about. Or that you just need to calm down.
I know they are real.
What else I know is that this perspective ignores a crucial fact - that more so than any previous era, the modern world is tailor-made to breed anxiety.
Our society and culture — the things we read, watch and scroll every day — are designed to induce a near-constant state of vigilance and unease.
I see the presence of anxiety everyday. The constant stress and pressure. Feeling trapped in a negative cycle of fear and worry, a prisoner of your own brain.
Anxiety robs us of our presence, purpose, and joy in life and negatively affects our relationships with ourselves and those around us.
So what does that look like?
Some of the more common signs of anxiety are:
Frequently find yourself thinking and fretting about things that happened weeks or months ago.
When you make a mistake at work, or even in your personal life, you have a hard time letting it go and beat yourself up over it.
Trouble sleeping because you’re playing over the day you just had in your head relentlessly.
Out of nowhere, your throat feels incredibly tight and it becomes hard to catch your breath.
Constantly apologising for the smallest of things that other people wouldn’t even think twice about.
Having thoughts about your future at least once a day, and can’t seem to calm down about what’s next.
Nail biting or other similar nervous habits that occur without even noticing.
Avoiding confrontation at all costs. The thought of confrontation creates negative physical sensations and mental images.
A sense of dread or feeling for no reason that you are in danger.
Digestion problems that seem to happen after stressful situations or encounters.
Does this sound like your symptoms?
As a therapist I found hypnosis a really helpful option to work with the discomfort and even fear that is felt from anxiety.
It supports you to ease your stress in your mind and body and bring your experiences back into perspective.
Just allowing yourself to be guided into the “trance”state is enough to reduce the production of cortisol in your body which immediately relieves anxiety symptoms.
Isn’t hypnosis amazing? For more detail on how it works and other FAQ click here:
https://rebeccaeather.com/faqs
It is in the safety of the relaxed state of hypnosis that you can more easily process the triggers of your anxiety, and treat your concerns directly.
This means you can begin to build a bridge between the fearful experience and the present and teach your mind and body to trust.
Trust that it is now safe and that you can choose how you would like to respond in any given circumstance.
Exploring triggers
Hypnotherapy can treat the underlying causes of your anxiety and improve your daily life. A huge part of the process is exploring the triggers and looking at causes.
We unpack areas like:
Cause of your anxiety episodes?
What historical point/s in your past may have initiated the onset, such as trauma or grief?
What physiological processes are in play?
What other strategies will support your healing?
Three pillars of overcoming anxiety in hypnotherapy
"Anxiety is a distorted perception where you are overestimating risk in your life and underestimating your inner strengths." Hypnotherapy can help you find new perceptions and learn how to access your strengths.
Finding release
One of the first stages of working with your anxiety using hypnotherapy is to look at one of the first times at these symptoms first appeared in your body.
It is possible in the safety of hypnosis to look at this stressful experience or emotion with a degree of distance that the trance offers. Often people remember small events that may have felt insignificant at the time but have set us up with a limiting belief about ourselves that is not helpful. This belief keeps us stuck in a state of stress when you are exposed to your particular trigger, or environment.
In the safety of hypnosis, and with a qualified therapist's support and guidance, you can begin to release the intensity of the emotions and physical symptoms of anxiety.
Reframing your experiences
In hypnosis, it is possible to see where your trigger was first pulled, yet be able to place some distance between you and this event. In this space, we can begin to use our kind, compassionate, adult wisdom to see the bigger picture and reframe the experience.
Maybe you can forgive yourself, or see a higher perspective?
Maybe you can comfort that part of you that is still a frightened child?
Maybe you can find a deeper compassion for yourself and the fallout from any trauma with more understanding?
By making meaning from these stressful situations our pain allows our brain and nervous system to process, integrate and move out of the fight or flight response and move into peace, calm and understanding.
Recreating what you experienced
Using self hypnosis you can allow your unconscious mind to recreate the anxiety-provoking experience from being 'terrifying' into something 'safe, secure and grounding'. This is powerful.
Your unconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between what is real and vividly imagined. This is why we can experience anxiety over something that is in the past, or the future.
We can use this part of our brains to help overcome trauma and treat anxiety - you do this by re-imagining the “trigger” moment and making it something that is empowering for you.
You can learn new ways of becoming more calm, confident and in control and practice the situations that once caused you to feel anxiety.
Ready to explore treatment?
Hypnotherapy can help to facilitate some profound changes in your body. Patients that benefit the most are those that have identified that they have some habits, behaviours or thought processes that are not healthy - and they want to make a change.
Think of it as healing and strengthening the mental and emotional part of you. The part where we often store our most deep-seated fears and the part which can stop us from reaching our full potential.
Your free hypnosis experience with me:
Try my self-guided trance experience for you to unwind from anxiety here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u8bOnZ7-aS5IWo_4WK4FMFCTbZvG3p3x/view?usp=share_link
Some tips before you start:
Find your best time and space:
Decide when you are going to listen to your audio. It is around 20 minutes long.
Times that are perfectly suited to listening to hypnosis are first thing in the morning before you get out of bed, or last thing at night before you go to sleep. This is because they are the ideal times to rewire your mind when your mind finds it easier to drift down into the theta brain-waves of trance that is hypnosis. It’s also easier to do when you’re already lying down.
Listen in a quiet space:
An environment that is calm and quiet without distraction will serve you best. Headphones are a great way to eliminate noise.
