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I can help you overcome your fear or phobia!
OCD can take several forms. For some people it involves meticulously placing objects in specific positions, adhering to a rigid sequence when performing tasks, or repeatedly carrying out an action either a precise number of times or until the individual feels a sense of control over their situation. For others, compulsions might be related to their bodily appearance rather than external objects. These compulsive rituals can encompass all the senses: from touch and sight to smell, taste, and sound. The complexity and frequency of OCD behaviours can be time-consuming, often proving physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting for both the individual and those close to them.
Recent research indicates that people with OCD have a heightened risk of developing addiction or substance abuse disorders. It's important to note that certain substances and medications can exacerbate or even trigger OCD symptoms.
In the sections that follow, I delve deeper into how fears escalate into phobias and detail my approach to helping clients permanently overcome fears, phobias, and compulsions.
Imagine you have a glass of water in front of you. Now, imagine that this glass is teetering on the edge of a tall table. Do you feel a bit anxious, hoping it won't fall? Yet there’s no glass and no table. It's just a scenario you visualised. Your emotions responded to your imagination, not the actual reality.
Daily, we produce and swallow our saliva without giving it a second thought. But the mere idea of collecting a year's worth of our saliva and seeing it outside our body can evoke feelings of disgust. Why? Because our mind painted a picture that changed our perception of something so familiar to us.
The point here is to show how our internal dialogue and imagination can dramatically shift our perceptions. They have the power to override logic. Think about common fears like flying; despite knowing air travel's safety statistics, many are still afraid because of the pictures and stories their minds create.
In essence, our emotions are deeply tied to our imagination and self-talk, often more so than to rational thought.
Consider a client I worked with who harboured an intense fear of cats. This phobia severely restricted their travel aspirations due to their apprehension of encountering large feline populations. A city like Istanbul, for example, is renowned for its vast population of sokak kedisi or 'street cats'. Estimates suggest that anywhere from a hundred thousand to over a million of these feral cats roam the streets of the city.
During a session of Rapid Transformational Therapyâ„¢(RTTâ„¢) and Hypnotherapy, the client was regressed under hypnosis to an incident from their early childhood. They recalled a vivid scene where a cat unexpectedly leaped into their pram. Their father, who also harboured a fear of cats, reacted with intense fear, exclaiming, "Oh my God, that cat's going to kill you!" In his panic, he hastily removed the cat and grabbed the child, his intense fear was evident. This traumatic experience imprinted a lasting fear of cats in the client's mind.
Armed with an understanding of the origin of the fear, I was able to challenge the clients old deep-seated beliefs about cats, transforming these paralysing fears into empowering new beliefs, allowing the client to finally break free from their lifelong phobia.
For instance, in the previously mentioned case, the client's initial imprint from their father's reaction was that "cats are terrifying and dangerous to children." This belief was further solidified when the father cautioned against touching cats, warning that their scratches could lead to septicaemia and be fatal. To the child, these instances only confirmed the idea: "cats can kill you." While the reality is that it's extremely rare for a cat to cause fatal harm, the client's phobia became entrenched and was further reinforced each time their father reacted with distress, labelling cats as dirty and emphasising their potential to scratch and bite.
By revisiting and deconstructing these memories with the client, they gained a deeper understanding of the root of their phobia. This allowed me to guide them towards releasing this irrational fear. They could finally acknowledge that this fear was a relic of their past, an imprint inherited from their father's own irrational fears and anxieties. Realising that the phobia wasn't genuinely their own and recognising their ability to transform their emotions, the client was empowered to permanently change their feelings towards cats.
In truth, babies arrive with only two innate fears: the fear of being dropped and the fear of sudden, loud noises. These primal instincts are deeply embedded in their subconscious, serving as survival mechanisms. Beyond these, they don't harbour the myriad of fears that accumulate over a lifetime. A baby doesn't tense up when there's an unexpected knock on the door in the dead of night, nor do they fear that the plane they are on will crash. And they certainly don't have a fear of getting fat if they have another bottle of baby formula!
I leverage powerful therapeutic tools and techniques to instil a sense of safety in my clients. By teaching them to fully embrace and harness the potential of their minds, I empower them to live a life filled with confidence and without fear. My clients quickly realise that, regardless of external circumstances, they always have the choice to control their beliefs and, by extension, their emotions.
So, if you’ve been routinely convincing yourself that you’re a nervous wreck, scared and fearful, and lacking in confidence, your mind will do everything it can to make that your reality. It will make you nervous and anxious and give rise to an even more powerful ‘inner critic’. It will keep you exactly where you tell it you want to be, as if acting on your instructions. Although the mind resists change, it is also quite brilliant at changing through repetitioning. In other words, tell your mind something enough times and in the right way and it happily recodes itself to the new instruction. That’s an aspect of the mind that I take full advantage of when treating clients suffering from fears and phobias.
Every thought you think, every word you say to yourself and every picture you create in your mind, form a blueprint that your mind and body work to make your reality. And since your mind responds to the thoughts and words you tell it, then it will protect them and work hard to make them your reality. Knowing this, you can see that your reality isn’t something external to you at all, instead it’s whatever reality you create in your mind.
That said, people often engage in unhelpful self-talk, and unknowingly assign roles and functions to the discomfort they subsequently experience. An individual’s emotional distress frequently manifests as physical symptoms within the body. Luckily, the solution to this predicament is relatively straightforward, requiring only that we retrain ourselves to think healthier thoughts.
This tendency towards the familiar can lead to some dangerous habits too. Have you ever experienced a toxic relationship? Often, that toxicity becomes so familiar, that it becomes the reality and experience that you move towards, time and time again. In doing so, you also create a false narrative, telling yourself that this is how relationships are for you, and how they need to be, and you stay a part of that false narrative for as long as possible. Humans are hard-wired to recreate what is familiar to them, we prefer what we know, even if it’s bad for us.
So how do we change our story? How do we make thoughts like ‘I’m brave, I’m fearless, I’m confident’ stick in our brains and become our familiar way of thinking?
Well, you can start by getting up each morning and telling yourself, ‘I’m a strong person, I’m deserving, I believe in myself, I have something to offer the world.’ Whatever it is you most want or need to hear, say it to yourself, because your mind doesn’t know what’s coming, it’s simply waiting for your next instruction, so why not make those instructions the things that empower you. Keep in mind that the words you say to yourself and the pictures you create in your head cause your body to have a physical response. Over time a physical response can become a barrier to living a normal life, so choosing your words wisely means they will work for you and not against you.
Simply thinking positive thoughts may sound easy, but here’s the thing, you must be consistent. If you’re going to tell yourself a better story and you want it to stick, you absolutely must tell yourself that story every day, always and forever - the mind learns through repetition and it is always listening.
There is almost nothing on the planet that will raise your self-esteem more than self-praise. And because the mind likes repetition so much, when praising yourself every day, your mind thinks, ‘Here you go again with that praise, you say it every day, so it must be true.’ Similarly, if you criticise yourself every day, your mind works in the exact same way, accepting it to be the truth and helping build upon this self-deprecation as the blueprint for your preferred mode of being.
A massive part of your well-being relies on the story you’re telling yourself. Bad things will inevitably happen to you, as with everyone else, and when something bad does happen, you will inevitably attach meaning to that event. Blaming yourself, and self-criticism are harmful, but you can reverse these familiar responses and change your story from ‘I’m fearful’ to ‘I’m fearless’ and see the remarkable effect that has on your life.
My therapies are designed to radically address the issues that are impacting your life. This includes your physical and emotional health, resilience, confidence, self-esteem, motivation, purpose and meaning, career, creating wealth and abundance, and achieving the life you want. I have developed a powerful programme of Psychotherapy, Hypnotherapy and Skills support to help people living with fears and phobias, often because they lack self-belief and the emotional strategies that are key to mental health. COACHD Rapid Transformational Therapyâ„¢(RTTâ„¢) and Hypnotherapy work with the subconscious mind, helping my clients reset their negative thoughts and beliefs to positive, empowering new ones that support their wellbeing, and personal or professional development.
By helping my clients fix the issues that lead to a fear or phobia, they are empowered to become the person they most want to be. Additional skills support is available to COACHD clients through my Coached Method Coachingâ„¢ service which helps them develop the practical skills needed to excel in all aspects of their life confidently, without fear, as well as helping them progress in work, wealth, and relationship and an unstoppable future! Read more about COACHD Method Coachingâ„¢.
I use this powerful therapy to help people get to the root cause of their emotional, physical, or cognitive issues. When I treat a client for a fear or phobia, I believe it is crucial to help them change their way of thinking, and any unhelpful beliefs and patterns of behaviour. Concentrating on the causes rather than the symptoms vastly increases the chance of success and lasting change.
Click this link to watch my short video on Rapid Transformational Therapyâ„¢ (RTTâ„¢).
COACHD hypnotherapy works with the subconscious mind, helping people deal with their past trauma and transforming any negative thoughts and beliefs into positive, empowering new ones. With COACHD Rapid Transformational Therapyâ„¢(RTTâ„¢) and Hypnotherapy, my clients learn how to master their thoughts and feelings and free themselves from fears and phobias forever. I believe my therapy is the most powerful and effective treatment available for these conditions. Read more about Rapid Transformational Therapyâ„¢(RTTâ„¢).
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