(This blog was originally posted on April 28, 2016)
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| Photo by Rick Hustead |
Does the sound of your spouse chewing a piece of gum drive you up a
wall? Do you experience an unbearable craving for a cigarette as soon as the
dinner dishes are cleared away? Do you break into a cold sweat at the thought
that one of your primary duties as best-man will be to make a speech or toast
for your buddy and his new wife on their big day?
These are just a few examples of “triggers”: i.e., events or situations
that evoke a strong emotional and even physiological reaction. For example, the
sound of the first bars of a song you shared with a former partner may now
bring up more negative emotions—anger and/or sadness—about the lost
relationship and the person you once loved. Whether you change the station on
the radio or skip over the song on your playlist, the damage is done and the
distress is real. Suddenly your day, which seemed like it was going so well you
heard those bars, is well on the way to being a total loss.
There are actually a few things you can do to salvage this situation. First,
and most important, breathing/activating a subconscious anchor is an excellent
way to calm down, relax and defuse a trigger. As horseman Monty Roberts reminds his students,
“Low adrenaline equals high learning.” (This applies to humans and equines.) Breathing naturally helps
to relax the body and lowers adrenaline floating around in the blood-stream
that otherwise jack up our anxiety and energy level. I help all of my
hypnotherapy clients find and create a subconscious anchor during one of their
first sessions with me, which they can use right away—wherever and whenever
they need it—to return to a comfortable, calm and relaxed state. Relaxation is
the key to your being able to use the logic and reasoning parts of your
conscious mind and effectively, confidently deal with a stressful or negative
situation.
Systematic desensitization in hypnosis to various triggers of the
negative association (e.g., your ex’s memory) is a great way to reduce stress
and anticipatory anxiety about encountering unwanted reminders in your
environment. I use this technique with many hypnotherapy clients to help them
deal with various issues such as resisting a sugary or high-calorie snack,
smoking, overcoming anxiety about public speaking, etc. Therapeutic
guided-imagery journeys and role-playing exercises such as talking to the
person or object that causes this distress to build self-confidence and
practice successfully resolving the specific conflict give you the “edge” in a
real-world encounter. Remember, the subconscious mind does not know the
difference between what is real and imaginary. When you practice walking
calmly, confidently away from the person who broke your heart or politely
reject that second helping of Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing while you are in
hypnosis, the SCM thinks it is doing these things in real time. The end result
is that the behavior will be easier and more comfortable—even feel more
natural—when you do it for real.
The Emotional Freedom Technique is
another very useful strategy for dealing with anxiety and other negative
feelings or reactions that come up when you encounter a specific trigger. This
process involves lightly tapping specific areas of the body (head/face, chest,
hands, etc.) to essentially disrupt and defuse negative energy in the body and
re-wire the mind to make a positive response or reaction. I often teach EFT to
my hypnotherapy clients to give them an extra tool with which to manage stress
and anxiety when they are faced with (or know they will encounter) an issue
that triggers this negative emotional state.
As always, it is important to make sure that you eat nutritious food
that contains protein, drink plenty of water and avoid caffeine to keep your
blood-sugar level even. As I explained in my blog titled The
Origin of Fears and Phobias, when the blood-sugar level suddenly dips the
body automatically defends itself by substituting adrenaline for glucose
(sugar). The bloodstream carries this hormone to the organs, muscles and glands
to activate the fight/flight response and become hyper-sensitive to negative
stimuli that already induce anxiety, nervousness, fear and even create a
phobia.
© 2017
