Insight: How I Help People Release Fears & Anxieties

If I had to describe fear and how it is experienced at the personal level I would think back to what I have learned through personal experience, and working with clients over the past few years. It doesn't matter the ‘content’ of the fear or form it takes and they can be vastly different – the fears, phobias, anxieties, and resulting outer expressions when the pain is too big to be held in any more in the form of IBS, insomnia, or addictions, panic attacks, disordered or compulsive eating for example.

The basic element present in all are painful, unresolved memories, beliefs and thought patterns relating to a particular time period in life, and having a huge negative impact on our life in the present. They have a strong effect on our physiology and nervous system, and pull us inwards into a tight ball, creating bodily tension, and utterly convincing they demand our complete attention. We are ungrounded, overwhelmed, feel unsafe and closed to the world around us, we are in our heads and may have no awareness of the body at all. There’s no relief or resolution, just repetition of those painful thoughts, and can quickly spiral and take us into darker places in the mind.

It’s no wonder we would do anything to avoid that discomfort! But any negative feelings are signposts or alarm bells that all is not well, and that is to be heeded.

Many bury their pain so deeply they live in denial, but unfortunately it’s not an effective coping mechanism and the pains are more likely to resurface if not in the mind then as stuck emotions that manifest as stronger disconnection from the body, and dis-ease in some form.

Fear is very uncomfortable, but it is better to feel and talk about it than be in absolute denial, and in silence.

So when I have the opportunity to work with someone because they have taken the brave, and most important first step of asking for help, I start by assessing the level of intensity of the negativity through how it is spoken about, or even where it is on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 being no stress, to 10 being maximum stress). It is so important to feel heard and understood, to feel that the pain can be witnessed and taken seriously by someone who can help.

I may use PSYCH-K, a short gong bath or kinesiology to start to reduce the intensity of the pain, that starts to bring in clarity and some distance from the situation. This is the time to start to explore why the pain is as yet unresolved and what the message is that needs to be heard here.

It is very useful to seek to understand what the painful thought patterns are trying to communicate, and what hasn’t yet been learned, integrated, or digested from that time. Or perhaps the situation is ongoing, life isn’t flowing well. The approach is the same – what is blocking you? What is needed to help shift the block? And what is the learning from the situation? We are all here to learn, grow and love after all, Earth is a schoolroom. We learn on the job.

There are many tools to use in kinesiology and PSYCH-K to discover what the blocks are, how best to release it and to do just that. It will be unique for each person and we work together to do that in sessions.

In releasing the stress, fear, and mental pain we gain clarity and spaciousness for new, more positive input to replace it. I know I am turning around a stressful situation for myself when I have what I call ‘original thoughts’ again – when I have new insights about it, and it doesn’t seem so threatening, close or upsetting any more. Or I lean into the source of the pain, realising that there is more to heal here, and so the pain guides me.

With freedom from the fear there is space for positive thoughts, feelings and energy to enter. When we are feeling positive we are relaxed, open, willing to consider new options and we are more embracing of others. New ideas can come in. You can liken this to the fresh bloom of life that is the season of Spring, and life wants to express itself through you.

A lot can be achieved in a PSYCH-K or kinesiology session when we are ready, though we may be self-sabotaging our healing out of a hidden desire to punish ourselves or are resistant to change. It can also take time to unravel and accept the lessons from painful situations. Once we have begun to accept and understand the pain however we are on the way to transforming it, we can then be more patient with ourselves and the process – however long it takes. With that kind of dedication it doesn’t take so long.

If a stress is still active in you it is only because there is more to learn and digest about it, that’s all. It doesn’t mean our efforts to help ourselves so far haven’t worked. It can take time and the healing happens in stages, requiring patience, self-compassion, love and forgiveness.

Ultimately we can find ourselves embracing challenges as part of the beauty of life, as opportunities to heal and grow more, from a stable foundation of peace, clarity, healing and self-confidence, and remembering that you are a work in progress.