Written by Nancy Pfaff, CCHt, NLP |
Have you noticed that some people seem to speak to groups like they were born for it? Don’t believe it. For most of us, it takes overcoming a lot of anxiety in order to take the chance of presenting ourselves in front of either strangers or colleagues. This anxiety is also known as stage fright. Quite often stage fright arises in a mere anticipation of a performance, often a long time ahead. It has numerous manifestations: fluttering or pounding heart, tremor in the hands and legs, diarrhea, facial nerve tics, dry mouth and more. Any of you who watched the head of General Motors being grilled in a congressional committee recently noticed the tic he had of repeatedly squinting his eyes. Even the most experienced leaders have their times of anxiety.
What is that anxiety all about? “Why do I feel like such a wimp when I notice my legs shaking as I go up to a podium to speak?” you may ask.
First, you’re not a wimp. You’re just human, and need an inner shift in your subconscious mind. The theory of mind provides some insight for us. About 12% of our mind is consciousness, our waking self. The other approximately 88% is our subconscious mind. Down in that subconscious twilight is the reason for our anxiety—a memory of some fearful experience that has coupled itself to public self-presentation. Using hypnosis, can relax the conscious mind enough to access the subconscious mind and uncouple that experience. Then a person’s anxiety can be transformed. After that the person is only minimally bothered by anxiety if at all.
Meghan had a terrible experience as a young child, at least viewed from her young perspective. Her piano teacher had her students preparing for a recital, and they had to memorize their pieces. Meghan was so proud to have her piece memorized and able to perform it perfectly. She was eagerly looking forward to showing off at the recital. Then the teacher told her another student would play her piece, and she had to choose another one. The wind went out of Meghan’s sails. She tried to memorize the new piece, but couldn’t always get it right. At the recital she made many mistakes in front of a large crowd. She told about feeling her face burning with embarrassment until she could escape back into the audience.
Now an adult wanting to speak to large groups, Meghan’s anxiety was stopping her. Here is how she worked with uncoupling this shame from public performance through hypnosis. First she went into trance facilitated by her own hypnotherapist. Trance is a state in which one is very relaxed and able to focus in a powerful way on whatever issue is presented. Then she was helped to find that experience in the subconscious mind. Her hypnotherapist asked her, “What did the child need?”, and then said, “Give her what she needs.” As the scene replayed itself in trance, Meghan the adult, went to the teacher and said, “Meghan (the child) will be playing the piece she has worked on and is ready to play. It is not fair to her to change her piece so late in the game.” Then as the adult, she viewed herself, the child, playing her piece perfectly, with great joy. Her adult self grabbed her up as she ran happily down the isle after performing and celebrated her victory. Today Meghan’s anxiety when performing publicly is quite manageable.
Here is the secret why hypnosis works. The subconscious cannot tell the difference between something vividly imagined and experienced reality. So when a person is in trance, deeply experiencing a healing “re-do” of an experience, the subconscious mind accepts this as experienced reality. The old memory is replaced with the new experience. The conscious mind still remembers the old experience, but all the emotional power and trauma to the nervous system stored in the body is released. It can seem like magic to the person freed from the old traumatic experience.
If anxiety in speaking to large groups is blocking your advancement in your job, hypnosis may be just the therapy needed to free you from limiting patterns in the subconscious mind. A good, practiced hypnotherapist will help you get to the root of the problem, and release it through a healing “re-do.” There are several good hypnotherapists locally to choose from. Don’t wait. Take action to remove this obstacle of anxiety from your life, and go after that promotion.
References:
1. NLP, The New Technology of Achievement. Ed. Steve Andreas and Charles Faulkner. Harper New York: 1994.
2. The Coherency Factor, Professional Training in Hypnosis and Neuro Linguistic Psychology. Donna M. Hamilton. New Vistas: 2008
For more info, contact Nancy Pfaff, CCHt, NLP at (775) 560-3030, specializing in Clinical hypnotherapy and Neuro linguistic psychology.
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