How To Banish Anxiety Through Self-Hypnosis
It’s normal to worry. Small amounts of anxiety can sometimes be a good thing, pushing us to complete projects that we may be putting off or to make changes in our life. More extreme cases of anxiety, such as the type of anxiety caused by specific traumatic events or feelings of overwhelming fear that are more long-term, may feel extremely difficult to overcome. But I want to reassure you: it is possible to break your anxiety cycle or, at the very least, reduce the intensity of your anxiety. There is help in the palms of your hands right now.
The strategies, techniques and exercises in this chapter will help with both mild or general anxiety as well as panic disorders and more extreme cases such as social anxiety.
Change your story
Negative thought patterns profoundly affect your anxiety. Have you ever noticed how simply thinking, I can’t do this or it’s all too hard makes your situation worse? Imagine instead if you said to yourself, I can handle anything or I am strong or I’ve got this. While it may take some practice, deleting negative thoughts is possible.
Having a mantra, an affirmation or a bank of positive thoughts you can call upon when negative thinking threatens to take over can help you stop the anxiety cycle in its tracks. You effectively replace the negative story your mind is telling you with an uplifting and positive one.
This positive affirmation or mantra helps you override repetitive negative thought patterns and excuses. It helps reprogram your limiting beliefs into limitless beliefs. When the I can’t cope becomes I can cope, and I’m not good enough becomes I am good enough, you start to feel better. When you feel better, you start to act differently, and you’re more inclined to feel happier and more content.
Anxiety can often be a message from your unconscious mind to focus on what you do want rather than what you don’t want. How many times have you been strong in your life? How many times have you overcome challenges? You are still here so you are a survivor. You are stronger than you think.
This is the power of changing your story.
“Anxiety can often be a message from your unconscious mind to focus on what you do want rather than what you don’t want. How many times have you been strong in your life? How many times have you overcome challenges? You are still here so you are a survivor. You are stronger than you think.”
Anna’s story
From a young age, Anna suffered almost daily anxiety and panic attacks.
‘My heart races, I tremble uncontrollably and I get a massive lump in my throat that makes swallowing and breathing difficult,’ said Anna. ‘I’ve done so much therapy, I feel as though I could almost be a therapist myself.’
Anna’s father had become increasingly violent towards Anna’s mother and when Anna was about nine, she tried to protect her mother, running between the two of them and screaming STOP. Her father grabbed her by the throat and shook her until she almost passed out. Anna had been reliving this and subsequent traumatic events over and over, whenever she felt threatened or stressed.
I explained, ‘We need to interrupt the pattern that has you continuing to feel these feelings. We also need to practise some simple exercises to help you take control of your state and release your fear.’
Anna explained that she was constantly fearful about having anxiety attacks. The stress connected to her expectation was actually contributing to the frequency of the anxiety attacks. Her situation was impacting all areas of her life, including her job and her relationships with her son and husband.
The first thing I did was teach Anna some simple meditation techniques to counter the feeling of anxiety. Simple breathing exercises helped reduce her stress levels. We also practised the positive breathing affirmation, I feel at peace, I am at peace. As each minute passed, Anna drifted into a deeper level of relaxation.
Anna listed all the limiting beliefs and fears connected to her anxiety. Writing down all your negative thoughts and fears is a wonderful exercise as it helps you take the negatives from your unconscious mind and put them onto paper. One thought at a time, we changed the old story.
The main hypnosis session involved identifying how and where Anna experienced the feelings. Because she felt a lump in her throat the size of a tennis ball, I had her imagine it was shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. The lump shrank down to the size of a ping pong ball, and then a small marble.
At that moment, I had Anna breathe the feeling, like a vacuum, from her throat up into her shoulder and, as she exhaled, breathing the feeling down her arm into her hand while making a fist around the feeling. The next breath was a deep one and, as Anna exhaled, I had her open her hand and blow the feeling away. We repeated this technique a total of three times.
I asked Anna to think of three positive emotional states. She chose calm, control and happy. One state at a time, I had Anna recall times throughout her life when she felt calm, when she felt in control and when she felt happy.
Rather than simply trying to stop the anxiety or panic attacks, I felt a gentler approach was to attach the positive states to the negative states, and thereby change Anna’s response. I asked her to think about something in recent days that made her feel anxious and then to bring in the feeling of calm, followed by the feeling of control, then the feeling of being happy. After repeating this exercise several times, Anna was able to experience anxiety as a calm, controlled, happy anxiety. We repeated the exercise of attaching positive emotional states to the old anxiety and guess what? The anxiety was all but gone.
‘How does that feel?’ I asked.
‘It feels good. I feel calm, in control and happy,’ said Anna.
This was followed by an I am mindful self-hypnosis session. I asked Anna to breathe the following suggestions as deeply as she could into herself:
Deep breath in, I am, breathing all the way out, calm.
Deep breath in, I am, breathing all the way out, in control.
Deep breath in, I am, breathing all the way out, happy.
We also did a session to release the fear from the original event all those years ago. Anna came up with a positive lesson, ‘I am safe, I am okay.’ Anna changed her story, changing her life.
Twelve months on, I heard from Anna who reported that her daily meditation, breathing exercises and mindful self-hypnosis affirmations were keeping any feelings of anxiety at bay.
This is an edited extract from Mind Free: The breakthrough mindful self-hypnosis method (Murdoch Books, $32.99)