GOODBYE PHOBIA. How to Wipe Out Any Phobia in an Instant! JAMES SKINNER ROICE KRUEGER MARK VICTOR HANSEN

Transcription

1 GOODBYE MY PHOBIA How to Wipe Out Any Phobia in an Instant! JAMES SKINNER ROICE KRUEGER MARK VICTOR HANSEN

2 How to Wipe Out Any Phobia in an Instant! James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen Goodbye My Phobia is a guide to overcoming your most deeply seated fears. It has been proven effective in eliminating phobias time after time. It can work for you. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 1

3 The Authors: JAMES SKINNER is the founder of two global financial groups that manage billions of dollars of assets. He is also recognized as one of the world s foremost business thinkers and appears regularly on Japanese television. ROICE KRUEGER co-founded Franklin Covey, the world s largest training company, and has supervised consulting projects for 80 percent of the Fortune 500. MARK VICTOR HANSEN is the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul empire and is the best-selling nonfiction author of all time. His goal is to make the planet work for all humanity! NOTE: Ideas That Can Change Your Life is a collaboration of three of the world s most amazing authors, speakers, and thinkers. The first person I may refer to any of the authors. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 2

4 The Painful Truth Human beings are governed by the pleasure and pain principle as described most elegantly by Sigmund Freud. Everything we do is either an effort to get pleasure or avoid pain. This is a profound truth. We may have different names, labels, or descriptions for pain, such as fear, sadness, loneliness, depression, boredom, and so on. We also have many names and monikers for pleasure, such as courage, happiness, love, sense of achievement, and so on. But no matter how you look at it, we all want to experience positive emotions and to avoid negative ones. This is deeply connected to our most basic survival mechanisms. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 3

5 Physical pain, the most basic form of negative emotion, must be avoided to keep us alive; and by the same token, we must satisfy our physical hunger for food. Most Fear Is Healthy Phobias are all about fear, and fear is a basic part of our survival mechanism. We are programmed and wired at a primal level to experience fear a powerful motivation for avoidance toward anything in our external environment that is dangerous and poses a threat to our survival. Our brain carries out this work of keeping us alive by building connections, linkages, and tie-ups between the various objects in our physical world and the pleasure and pain centers of the brain. For example, if we took a fall and were hurt when we were young, our brain may associate pain to falling down or to high places. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 4

6 The brain may even begin to send out signals of pain when we merely imagine ourselves falling from a high place! If we had a pleasurable experience with our family at an amusement park, the brain will link pleasure to amusement parks or roller coasters. Many of our fears are rational and serve to protect us throughout life. For example, if your mother scolded you when you ran out into the street without looking, you may have developed a healthy fear of oncoming motor vehicles. This fear will cause you to look both ways before crossing the street, thus keeping you safe throughout your life. Fear is there to protect us from oncoming traffic! 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 5

7 What Is a Phobia Anyway? So what exactly is a phobia anyway? A phobia can be defined as an irrational fear that causes us to experience a physiological revulsion to something that does not actually threaten us with serious harm. Phobias occur when the brain links only pain and no pleasure to any object or experience. In order to have a phobia, the brain must represent the object of the phobia in a disproportionate, exaggerated, or irrational manner. These definitions may seem complicated at first, but they hold the key to curing your phobia; so let s examine the crucial elements one more time. A phobia is characterized by being an irrational fear of something that does not actually threaten us with serious harm and 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 6

8 is accompanied by a physical revulsion (the body physically reacts when we think of or actually encounter the object of our phobia) in which the brain links only pain and no pleasure to the object or experience in question and in which the brain makes exaggerated or irrational representations. Phobias are usually engendered by some traumatic childhood experience in which a tremendous amount of pain is linked to the object of the phobia and to which the child s brain reacts by creating an exaggerated representation of the threat posed by the object or experience in question. Phobias are brought on by traumatic experiences that cause us create exaggerated images in our mind. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 7

9 Removing the Phobia Now the good news is you do not have to know, understand, or psychoanalyze the cause of the phobia to remove it. Phobias can be simply and naturally overcome by changing the way in which we represent, imagine, or think of the object of our phobia internally or by altering the brain s connections, associations, and linkages of pain to connections, associations, and linkages of pleasure. The two ways to remove a phobia are 1. change the way we internally represent the object of our phobia or 2. change our connections of pain to connections of pleasure (or to a mixed connection with both pleasure and pain). Changing Our Internal Representations Let s first look at our internal representations. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 8

10 None of us sees the world as it truly is. Rather, we see the world on the screen of our mind s eye, with many alterations and modifications. Put simply, we edit. We choose to focus on one aspect of an experience and not another. Our images may be still or moving, framed or panoramic, accompanied by music or in silence. They may have smells and tastes, or we may choose to focus on a particular physical sensation. In fact, we can imagine almost anything, and we can remember past events in any way we choose. We can imagine anything we want, and we can remember past events in any way we choose! Since we are free to imagine the object of our phobia any way that we want to, we can imagine it as 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 9

11 being an exaggerated, insurmountable horror or we can imagine it as a very normal part of our everyday lives. We can even imagine the object of our phobia as being humorous and enjoyable! You can change how you imagine or think of the object of your phobia! So how do you actually do it? Step 1: Distancing Since it may be difficult to directly think about or imagine the object of our phobia (remember, phobias cause physical and physiological reactions in the body), we use a technique called observing the observer. This simple technique will enable you to put distance between yourself and the image we will be editing. In a direct image, you imagine yourself directly experiencing something, such as having a direct interaction with the object of your phobia. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 10

12 In an observer mode, you see yourself from a distance having the interaction or experience. This gives you distance and perspective. In observing the observer, you take a third position in which you observe the observer. You do not actually watch the events taking place directly at all! Imagine yourself observing another you, who is in turn watching the events. You never see the events directly. When you are observing the observer, you are not observing the events! The ability to observe the observer is the key to working with images of objects and experiences to which you have phobic reactions. mind. There are many ways to create such an image in your 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 11

13 The most effective ways involve using the image of an opera stage, sports arena, or any other image where spectators are involved. For example, you could see yourself riding in a blimp above a sports arena, observing another you in the bleachers, who is in turn watching events unfold on the field below. You could see yourself watching TV in your living room. On the TV you can see the NASA control center in Houston, where another you is watching events unfold in space that are not being shown on your TV. The key here is to create sufficient distance between you and the object of your phobia so that you can work with it without being directly affected by it. It may be useful to have a friend guide you in your visualization, or you may find it easy to do for yourself. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 12

14 Step 2: Image Editing The next step is to edit our internal images and representations. In other words we are going to alter and change the way we see things. While maintaining a state where we observe the observer (lots of distance from the object or event in question), we can edit and change our image of the object of our phobia. Have the object of the phobia in question appear on the playing field, opera stage, or whatever other stage you have set up. You can then alter the image by changing information relating to each of your five senses. Sense of Sight: You can change the colors; play the events in reverse; make the image larger or smaller; change the brightness; add color, or make the image black and white; add new characters to the scene; have the various participants or objects behave in humorous ways; and so forth. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 13

15 You can radically and dramatically change how the image looks. Remember you are not observing this directly, you are only observing the observer. Sense of Sound: You can add funny, sexy, comical voices; add carnival or other fun, enjoyable music; add pleasant, relaxing, soothing sounds of nature; change the volume of the sound; and so on. The mind is infinitely flexible and can make any changes that you desire, even if you are not directly watching, listening, or observing the changes being made. Sense of Touch: You can add new bodily sensations, such as a pleasant breeze that was not there before; you can make it lighter or heavier; you can change the rhythm; make things smooth or rough; cooler or hotter. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 14

16 Keep changing the physical sensations until a most pleasant state is achieved. Sense of Taste: If you like, you may add pleasant tastes and sensations in your mouth to give flavor to the whole experience. Sense of Smell: Experiment with pleasant and enjoyable fragrances. Add jasmine or smell or roses or a fruity smell or your favorite perfume. Have the smell of nature, or a delicious smell, or a sensual scent that enlivens the senses. Keep making edits and adding changes until you are sure that the image you have created in your mind is radically different from the one you had before. Remember, it is all in the mind. How we represent the events on the playing field, spaceship, or theater screen is entirely up to us. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 15

17 Step 3: Close the Distances The next step is to close the distance to the image to see how you did. This should be done one step at a time. First, move from the third to the second position. Go down from the blimp to the bleachers or from the living room to the Houston control center. Become the observer. View the events from there. How do they appear to you? How do you feel? If you are still uncomfortable, go back to the third position and change the image even more. If, however, you feel comfortable observing the events from a distance, then move down on the playing field and see how it is from there. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 16

18 You should be just fine. If not, you can always go back and change your internal imagery even more. You can add beautiful scents, delicious flavors, sights, sounds, and senses. This process can reliably remove most phobias in just 10 to 15 minutes time. Mixed Connections Another way to change a phobia is through mixed connections. Because a phobia is a total connection to pain, with no pleasurable connections attached, any pleasurable connections we make to the object of our phobia will have the effect of removing the phobia as a debilitating force in our lives. 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 17

19 I remember teaching a seminar once, when a man in the audience stood up and said, I have a phobia of flying. I looked over at him in front of hundreds of other participants and asked, Do you like sex? What?! Do you like sex? Huh? He was a bit stunned by the question. I m asking, do you like sex? Yes? Or no? Yes OK, when you have sex, are you on the top or on the bottom? What?! 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 18

20 When you have sex, are you on the top or on the bottom? I guess both. Airplanes are a lot like that, I said. When we get into turbulence, it s up and down, up and down. His phobia was instantly cured! He had begun to link up flying with sex, which was something that he enjoyed. It really is that simple and in most cases can be handled in a matter of minutes. Change the representations or change the connections and it s Goodbye, my phobia! 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 19

21 With best wishes, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen 2007, James Skinner, Roice Krueger, and Mark Victor Hansen. All rights reserved. 20