Exposure Therapy, the most dreaded part of any phobic’s treatment. It’s the time when you have to actually face whatever has been scaring you, causing anxiety, or making you have panic attacks. But perhaps you should stop and wait just for a moment. Are you doing everything you can to make exposure therapy quick, easy and relatively painless?
Some people aren’t afraid of anything and go through life without anxiety, shrug off bad news and thrive from stress. They are as tough as old boots. Over the last few decades experts have devoted hours to understanding why some people are more optimistic, fearless, and hardy than others. There are a few obvious reasons like upbringing, possibly some genetics, diet, and brain structure which play a role, but none of those things damn you to a life of uncontrollable anxiety, far and hopelessness. So what do the successful people do differently?
Visualization.
For years people have done visualisation exercises for the purpose of relaxation, the standard one being to visualize yourself on a beach feeling the warmth on your skin. As relaxation techniques they are very effective for most people, resulting in a lowering of blood pressure and pulse rate, and helping relieve muscle tension. Most people report feeling calmer. This is great for general anxiety, stress and worry but only of limited help when it comes to tackling phobias. Relaxation is good and obviously it’s better to tackle a phobia with a relaxed body than with a tense one, but state of mind is very important and the site of the phobic situation, be it entering an airport, seeing the elevator doors or hearing the subway train approaching, can bring all of that relaxation crashing down.
So what can be done to make a different kind of visualization work for you? Let’s examine two options.
This article is continued at the visualization section of Anxiety 2 Calm.
