***Alleviating Fear and Anxiety

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” Madame Marie Curie Just about everyone on earth has experienced fear and/or anxiety at one time or another. Whether it’s being anxious over making a good impression with the in-laws, giving an important speech to a critical audience, or worrying about terrorist attacks, we’ve all felt the discomforts of being fearful or anxious. We live in incredibly stressful anxiety-producing times. Wars, terrorist threats, random acts of violence threaten our safety worldwide. Uncontrollable natural disasters can destroy our homes and devastate our lives. Every day, we are bombarded with sound bites, video footage, and special reports of tragedies occurring here in the United States and abroad. Our media seems to be continually urging us to be vigilant as danger is lurking all around us. A study may confirm that foods once thought to be beneficial are now considered hazardous to our health. Everyday household items may jeopardize our safety. The threat of a new virus or disease looms on the horizon. Pollution and global warming are threatening our planet. The state of the economy and that of the real estate market have analysts worried, and so the list goes on. Is it any wonder that we, as a society, feel more fearful and anxious than ever? Most people experience fear and anxiety as temporary feelings that dissipate once a threatening situation is under control or its causes have been eliminated. Yet for others, the dread, the sense of “uneasiness” and the ensuing physical symptoms never completely subside. It is this type of “chronic” fear and anxiety that we will focus on in this article. Physical consequences to chronic fear or anxiety Chronic fear or anxiety sufferers are plagued most of the time with a sense of impending disaster. Their perpetually fearful or worried state of mind, besides being emotionally taxing, is also detrimental to their physiology. It causes adrenaline and other stress hormones to surge through their body. Their respiratory rate increases, their blood pressure goes up, their heart starts pounding. They feel tense, and they grow tenser. The effects of excessive stress, whether from internal worry or exte al circumstances, are cumulative. Therefore, eventually many fear and anxiety sufferers find themselves in a constant hyper-vigilant state. They may not be able to explain the reason for their fear or concern, yet they are nonetheless unable to relax. Their bodies remain tense, on high alert as do their minds. Fear becomes the lens through which they see the world. Fear and anxiety have specific scientific meanings, yet common usage has made the terms interchangeable. Their nature is often so interconnected and intertwined that we often experience them together: * Fear and anxiety cause more physical symptoms than perhaps any other emotions * Both can trigger heart pounding, breath-stopping, stomach-chu ing, palm-sweating, or lump-in-the-throat responses * Both stem from similar causes and produce comparable effects * They are obstacles that repeatedly prevent many people from getting what they want out of life * Both can impair physical and/or psychological functioning * Fear and anxiety can lead to panic attacks * Both can become long-term, debilitating problems even in the absence of any apparent rational cause * Fear and anxiety are almost always the underlying root cause of addictions * Chronic fear and anxiety are contributing factors to a long list of conditions, both physical and emotional, such as insomnia, agoraphobia, high blood pressure, gastro-intestinal ailments, adrenal fatigue, allergies, depression, and low self esteem. * Left untreated, anxiety can manifest into serious illnesses such as heart disease, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, cancer and more… Non-physical ramifications to chronic fear or anxiety I believe that fear is one of the greatest obstacle to success in all areas of life. Underlying fear can stop action before it ever gets started. Fear of failure is perhaps the major culprit, followed by fear of rejection and fear of success. Most anxiety and anxiety-driven thoughts are fear-based, often rooted in the fear of losing control. When facing real danger that threatens our survival, it is normal to feel fear. It is natural to experience a little anxiety occasionally, especially about the unknown. It is also natural and healthy to express normal caution or concern. However, when you become so preoccupied with not making a mistake, so fearful of looking foolish, or worried about rejection or countless other fear-related scenarios, then you are sabotaging our true potential. Often chronic fear originates in early childhood at a time when a parent’s behavior profoundly impacts a child’s self-confidence, security and sense of safety. Domineering, judgmental, alcoholic, or perfectionist parents can create a lifetime legacy of fear, anxiety and uncertainty for their children. Once fear or anxiety has been imparted to a child, it interferes with the child’s sense of self. It inhibits his or her confidence, limits self-expression, and undermines his or her sense of safety and security. This unfortunately can manifest as a myriad of problems later in life as mentioned above. The light at the end of the tunnel The good news is that tapping can neutralize fear and anxiety very effectively and lastingly. Tapping can bring about amazing changes, often resulting in what appear to be “miraculous” outcomes. Once we uncover the cause(s) of one’s fear or anxiety (which are just symptoms) we can eradicate them fairly easily with tapping. And by balancing the body’s energy system by tapping, we are restoring calm and tranquility. Here’s an illustration from one of my client files. “Martha”, by her own admission, was constantly anxious over “nothing and everything” and was quite dysfunctional in her life. She had lost her job, broken up her marriage, and alienated most of her friends and family because of her extreme fear and anxiety. Although she couldn’t remember any specific incidents that may have started her anxiety, she knew she had been this way most of her life. I asked about her parents and her childhood, which is always a good place to start. Martha’s father, an alcoholic, was verbally and physically abusive to her and her mother. They were always fearful about him coming home. They never knew in what kind of mood he would be or what horrible things he might do to them. Even after he appeared to have fallen asleep in a drunken stupor, just as they hoped for a few moments of peace, he would often awaken in a rage and take it out on them. As a result, Martha and her mother lived in a constant state of terror. In my experience, an alcoholic parent’s behavior is very traumatic to a child or to a spouse and it is responsible for generating more fear, anxiety, uncertainty, anger, and resentment than perhaps any other singular cause. Sadly, the impact of these feelings can last a lifetime, whereas an adult he or she may never feel completely safe and secure. When I asked Martha to think about incidents with her father, her intensity rating rose to a 10. So, using my “Bundling Baggage”* Technique, we grouped all of the terrifying incidences together and tapped on them at once. First, we started by addressing any reversals** (subconscious resistance) Martha had about getting over her anxiety. We did a reversal neutralization, tapping on the karate chop (KC) point, saying three times: “Even though, I don’t want to let go of all of the fear and terror caused by Dad, I deeply and completely accept myself.” “Even though I’m afraid to let go of my traumatic childhood, I’ve felt this way so long, I might not know how to function without it, love and accept myself anyway.” “Even though I don’t want to get over all my childhood terrors and trauma , for a lot of reasons or for whatever reason, I completely accept who I am today.” Note: If when tapping you can’t say, “I love and accept myself” and actually mean it, then say, “I WANT to love and accept myself.” Next we moved to the set-up spot, (the sore spot on the chest or the KC point again) and said: “Even though I’ve always been fearful and anxious because I never knew what to expect from my dad, I love and accept who I am now.” “Even though I learned about fear and anxiety from Dad, I deeply and completely accept myself.” “Even though after all these years, I’m still like a little girl, deeply affected by fear and anxiety caused by Dad’s behavior, I want to accept the woman I am now.” On the first round of tapping, we used “these childhood terrors and traumas” as the reminder statement on each of the tapping points. During the next round, we gave a “voice” to her feelings. We tapped each point while “venting”, remembering how she felt as a child: …It was awfulrn…I never knew what to expectrn…I lived in terror …I was even anxious at school, where I was safe, far away from himrn…I could never sleep in peacern…It wasn’t fairrn…I just wanted to be loved by Daddy, but he scared mern…Why did he do that to us? …I didn’t do anything wrongrn…It just wasn’t fair Martha’s intensity had dropped to a 6, so we did a few more rounds adding in the phrases: …I want to feel safern…I want to be calm and relaxedrn…I want to trust myselfrn…I want to forgive my daddyrn…I want to let go of this anxietyrn…I’ve had it long enoughrn…I’m ready to release all the fearrn…I allow myself to feel calm and safe. We continued in a similar manner until Martha was at a zero. I then had her try to get upset at something her father had said or done to her. But she couldn’t get upset, no matter how much she tried. That’s what is supposed to happen if an issue is really cleared. Be sure to test your issues, or your client’s. If someone is tentative about trying to get upset, then he or she isn’t over it yet and a few more rounds are required. Once the past trauma, fear, terror, and anxiety had been put to rest, Martha felt calm, relaxed, and safe for the first time in her life. She was thrilled and said she felt 20 pounds lighter. I usually don’t stop after eliminating the negative with a client, however. I like to take tapping another step with them, instilling positive aspects about who they are or want to be. This is a very empowering way to accentuate the benefits of tapping and let the client voice options they perhaps had never considered possible before. I did that with Martha, asking her to do 2-3 more rounds of tapping leading her with positive phrases such as: (starting at the eyebrow point, no set-up required) …I am calm, confident and relaxedrn…I feel safe in the world nowrn…I find it easy to be at peace and relaxedrn…I feel securern…I trust myself to handle challenges as they arisern…I choose to make life easyrn…I allow myself to feel safe, confident, and securern…I choose to turn any fearful or negative thoughts into thoughts of peace and gratitude …I am so grateful for feeling safe, calm, and confident I reminded Martha that she now had the wonderful Meridian Tapping tools to use whenever she needed to feel calm. I reiterated the benefits of staying focused on the positive keeping in mind the principals of the Law of Attraction, that whatever you focus on increases. If she continued to worry that her state of calm wouldn’t last, then she would attract a new set of fears and anxiety. So I asked Martha to tap on the above positive statements every day, concentrating only on pleasant aspects she wanted to attract in her new life. A few months later, Martha reported back that she was in a happy relationship, had a new job, new friends, and a comfortable, joyful, peaceful life. Good Luck and Good Tapping