Anxiety has its origin in the subconscious mind and the root cause of all emotional and psychological problems, including anxiety, is fear. All unresolved emotions such as anger, despair, sadness, get stored in the subconscious mind (usually as a result of a past event) as a kind of negative programming which then shows up in our lives. Fears can be categorised into two types – rational fears and irrational fears.
1) Rational fears act as warning signals and are a direct result of circumstances which pose some kind of threat (for whatever reason) to one’s sense of self and well being. Some are even good as they keep us safe and alive. Some examples of rational fears may include public speaking, fear of authority, fear of enclosed spaces, visiting the dentist, fear of hospitals or doctors etc. Although these types of symptoms create feelings of discomfort and they are predominantly felt as anxieties in the psyche, they can be defined as a mild form of stress. Here, the triggers are easily identifiable and can be easily rationalised.
2) Irrational fears, on the other hand, are usually manifested as phobias or panic/anxiety attacks which may or may not have obvious triggers and are generally unpredictable e.g. the sufferer does not know when or where they will be overcome by the paralysing and what seems like life threatening symptoms which take over their faculties and responses. They often feel they cannot control their responses which are out of proportion with the event or trigger. Here the anxiety levels are so high and the conflict in the psyche so intense that the blocked feelings and emotions manifest themselves physically. The subconscious mind tries to protect us from what it views as a threatening event and has stored within it unresolved internal conflicts and traumatic events from our past; these internal programmes determine how we feel, how we behave, and our responses to external events. Any irrational fear or responses are simply survival coping mechanisms that have been created long ago. The conscious mind is not aware of the negative programming but only of how it affects the quality of the individual’s life. Although there are no immediate physical threats he/she still responds to the fear and feels anxious even though there is no apparent cause for fear in his/her present life.
The important thing here is to establish early on how these stresses and anxieties are being manifested in an individual’s life. By looking beyond the symptoms we are able to find out what’s really at the source of a person’s anxiety. It is only by getting to the root of a problem that the anxiety manifested as a physical symptom disappears.
Hypnotherapy can help people find and eliminate their anxiety at the source.