Hypnosis For Fears

Here is a case study from my hypnotherapy practice:

“A woman in her late 50-ties comes to me for a fear of flying. She needs to travel a lot due to her job requirements but has extreme fear, so every time before the flight she numbs the fear with medication or a lot of alcohol. However, she doesn’t like it as she feel exhausted and tired after every flight, unable to focus during work meeting, having anxiety about the flight back. Every trip is a huge stress for her. Logically, she totally understands that flights are safe and that she will be ok, but every time the aircraft door close, she feels out of control, panicky and dizzy.

In hypnosis, we go on a journey of her life to find out where how and why she started to be afraid of flying. The first scene is when she is 8 years old and her beloved grandmother dies. The family travels oversees for a funeral. During the 9 hour flight, her mom cries uncontrollably and her dad drinks a lot to cope with the stress. She starts to connect flight with suffering and the feeling of helplessness. She really want to help her mom feel better but she can’t. She starts to believe that flying is negative.

The second scene we go to is an event when her dad dies. She is 19 years old and just about to start the college. She is flying to States for a semester 2 weeks after her dad passed away. Again, her mind associates flying with grief, pain and loss. At that age she started to have panic attacks on flights. 

In the reframe part of the session, we bring her attention to those memories and how they affected her life, we give her an understanding that losing family member has nothing to do with flying and it is a natural process of life. 

But the light bulb moment happens when she realizes her grandmother and her dad never lived the life they wanted, they were always unhappy and unsatisfied with their lives. She realizes that she is also carrying those feelings of uncertainty and loss on interest in life. That’s why she is afraid to die in an uncontrolled situation because she, as per her words, “hasn’t even started to live”

Fear of dying is very often connected to not following our heart, not living our passion. When my client makes these connections, she is amazed at how brilliant her mind is and what it can do to her and for her. 

After listening to her personalized recording for 21 day, she travels to Costa Rica the next month. I didn’t hear from this client until 3 months later when she texted me:

I decided to stay here, in Tamarindo. I received an offer to work here. The money is not the same, and I will still need to figure things out in Canada, but I can’t tell you how happy I am. I needed this so much. I finally love my life… and flying. It’s overwhelming to experience all these changes, sometimes even scary, but so exciting. Thank you so much for that session! It changed my life.