Overcoming Your Phobia: 6 Things to Stop Doing Today

Overcoming phobias can seem like a pretty daunting thing to do, the problem being that the longer the fear goes on the worse it tends to become.

Your fear may then get to the point where you seek therapy in some form or other to help overcome it.

This has been a very typical scenario for clients I’ve seen for professional hypnotherapy sessions to overcome a whole range of fears from arachnophobia to fears of flying and the more unique ones as well.

People will have been coping with the fear for years, perhaps noticing a slow decline and then they will reach a tipping point, it might not be a drastic event, it’s just that they suddenly just become utterly fed up of having the fear.

There are things that most people with phobias tend to do which is actually making their fear worse, so I’ve made a list of the 6 things that you should stop doing if you want to overcome a phobia.

1. Stop believing that your fear is permanent

People with phobias will talk about them in terms of them being absolutes, definites, or unchangeables.

You might say things like:

“Oh, I could never go to Australia, they’ve got so many snakes there”

Or 

“I couldn’t even dream of going up the empire state building I’m terrified of heights”

Talking like this about your phobia convinces you that your fear is a permanent one, it is ingrained and it is a part of you.

Let’s be clear – if you have an irrational fear, it is not permanent.

So stop believing it’s permanent, start believing it’s temporary if you take the right actions.

2. Stop talking about your fear at every opportunity

I was doing the school run last week and overheard some mums talking, one of them casually mentioned something to do with spiders and instantly one of them chimed in saying “I’m terrified of spiders”

Now, they weren’t talking about fears, they were talking about getting the bikes out of a shed and spiders happened to be mentioned and yet this lady felt utterly compelled to tell everyone around her that she had this fear.

Just as a show of hands people, put your hand up if you think this is helpful if you want to overcome a fear of spiders….

Exactly.

No-one needs to know that, it’s not as if someone was about to bring a spider around the corner and she needed to alert them that this would scare her.

By bringing up your fear at every opportunity possible all you’re doing is reminding yourself that you have this fear, ingraining further into your head.

3. Stop posting on social media about your fear

Arachnophobics, I’m looking firmly in your direction on this one although other phobics are prone to this as well.

This is really simple.

If you are afraid of spiders then don’t post every article you see about it being “spider season” on Facebook.

Don’t take photos of every spider you see and post it on Facebook.

Stop filming yourself catching them and adding it to your Instagram story.

You get the picture?

By doing this all you’re doing is carving deeper and deeper into your own mind that you have a phobia of spiders (or whatever)

Not only that you’re also reminding and scaring other people that also have the same phobia.

There is no benefit to doing this whatsoever if you have any interest in overcoming your fear.

Stop it.

4. Stop exaggerating your fear

Not in my therapy room but in real life I’ve heard people talking about their phobias and it has turned into a game of one upmanship

“I can’t even be in a room if I know there is a spider in there.”

“Well, if someone even mentions the word dentist I’m physically sick”

“Oh, I know what you mean, if a spider has ever been in the same country as me I arm myself with a knife.”

“Yeah, I know – I once met someone at a party and they said they were a dentist and I dived head first out of a 2nd floor window just to get away.”

“You couldn’t pay me a million pounds to touch a spider.”

…

Ok, that’s enough exaggeration.

But this is how people speak about their phobia.

Can you really not even be in the same room as a spider or would you just prefer not to be?

Does the thought of going to the dentist actually make you throw up or is it just a really uncomfortable idea?

We’ll get into this more later but honestly, what you tell yourself is what you will create for yourself.

So, if you’re telling others (and yourself) that your fear is greater than it actually is then it will become that.

5. Stop running from your fear (sometimes literally)

Our brains learn from our experiences of things, this is why we tend to only do the things that cause us serious injury once.

It is absolutely correct to be frightened of certain things, tigers, sharks, lions, poisonous snakes etc – and the right response is to be nowhere near them and avoid situations in which you might encounter them.

Being afraid of the things that can’t kill/hurt you is not helpful at all and having a response that is similar to there being a tiger in the room is even less so.

If you find yourself in the situation where you are being “confronted” with your fear stop going with your first response which is to figuratively or metaphorically run from it.

Once again running from what you are afraid of is teaching your brain that this is something to be feared.

Even spending a couple of seconds before running away is better than running away instantly.

Better still would be to stay in the situation and remind yourself that whilst you may not be comfortable you are actually safe.

This will teach your brain that this isn’t something that you have to be afraid of and it can be rewired relatively quickly.

6. Stop letting your thoughts control you

This is perhaps the biggest key when I help clients to overcome phobias that they have – discovering and correcting the thoughts, or perhaps we should say lies, we tell ourselves with regards to our phobias.

By recognising, changing and re-teaching ourselves what healthy thinking is towards whatever we fear then we can stop fearing it.

We can often think that our brain is a one way street, that we receive a thought about something from it and then have to accept that as fact.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

You can stand up to your brain and tell it that it’s spouting absolute BS at any given moment. 

Overcoming your phobia by changing your thoughts

1. Discover what thoughts are going through your head when you become afraid of your phobia.
2. Analyse it and find out if it is actually true, factual, helpful etc.
3. Replace it with a much more helpful thought.

Examples 

Fear of Heights

“If I go out onto that 3rd floor balcony, I’ll die because it’s so high up.” 

No, no you won’t die – you might feel uncomfortable, sick, stomach might churn, you might get the shakes or sweats but you’re not going to die.

How is your body likely to feel if you’re telling it you’re going to die?

It’s going to feel awful.

Plus, you don’t know how you’ll feel when you’re out there, you’re assuming.

Also, let’s lose the “if” because you want to overcome this fear of heights, so let’s make that a “when”

Our new thought to challenge the old one.

“When I go out on that balcony I don’t know how I feel, I might feel great, I might feel uncomfortable. If I do feel uncomfortable then I can come back inside at a time of my choosing.” 

How much more positive is that? 

Fear of Spiders (non-poisonous)

“When I know there is a spider in the room I can’t sleep, what if it runs over me in the night?” 

There’s little or no point in spending too much time on any of this other than to simply change the thought to. 

“Spiders don’t give a shit about me and are most likely to keep their distance.”

Or

“Nothing will happen if a spider runs over me, it couldn’t harm me even if it wanted to.” 

Fear of Flying

“I can’t fly anywhere, I know that if I get on a plane it will crash and I’ll die.” 

You know that? How do you know that? Can you see the future? Are you going to try and crash the plane? Are you an aircraft engineer? 

A study done with 2012-2016 statistics showed you have:

• A 1 in 3.37 billion chance of dying in a plane crash.
• A 1 in 20 million chance of being in a plane crash.
• 98.6% of plane crashes had no fatalities.

So, are you the most unlucky person in the world? 

Sometimes this logical deconstruction and question of thoughts can help find a much more pleasant thought to replace the horrible old one.

Something like:

“Going on a plane isn’t my favourite thing and I might feel uncomfortable but I am grateful to be able to do this and I’m looking forward to going where I’m going” 

“I’m not the unluckiest person in the world and I’m going to enjoy the chance to just sit and read for a few hours.”

Conclusion on overcoming your phobia

Whether your phobia is a new thing to you or whether it has been around for years these are 6 different things that will help you to overcome your phobia if you stop them.

I know some of them might seem slightly odd or a little blunt but sometimes you just have to be that way with your brain, especially if it is telling fibs.

Knowing exactly what you’re thinking when you’re in the situation you find scary can be difficult and a little overwhelming because you’re likely just trying to get out of the situation again.

This is exactly the sort of thing that I can help you with using Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy so if you have a phobia that you’d like to overcome and you’d like to find out more then click the button below to book in a free chat.

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