transform your fears

into merely functional fears!

Do you focus on fear or on admiration or courage?

As an example, we take the fear of spiders:

If your child says: "That spider makes me afraid."

Then you could ask: (chunking down, metamodel questions):

"How did that spider make you afraid?"

"What has that spider done that makes you afraid?"

"What kind of spiders is really dangerous?"

"What kind of danger is there to this spider?"

"Has anyone ever died because of a spider bite?"

"Who told you to be afraid of spiders?"

Fear of spiders is a fine example of a non-functional fear.

This non-functional fear is transferred from mother to child (or from a bullying brother).

Compare fear of spiders with fear of dogs. (lateral chunk).

People who have ever been bitten by a dog can be afraid that this will happen again.

It is therefore good to keep this as functional as possible.

Make the context as specific as possible.

For example: I want to be careful with a dog of that and that size, of that breed, if it is not on the line, if I walk hard, in nature, etc.

Restrictive belief:

"That spider makes me afraid"

Reinforcing believes:

"Spiders are challenging me to show my courage."

or: "Spiders are useful little animals, I can let go of my fear."

or: "Spiders can snickle, like a very nice massage."

or: "I choose to only let functional fears work for me."

or: be creative, invent new reinforcing believes! ................................................

How does such a non-functional fear work now?

The spider is only a 'trigger' (cause) for your fear but has nothing to do with it.

It could just as well be something else, for example a daisy.

It may seem that the spider is doing this:
You are used to thinking anxious thoughts when you see a spider.
Maybe someone told you that spiders are scary. That's why you feel scared.

'The map is not the territory' does count here very strong.
No one ever died because of a spider bite.
And also in the tropics there are few serious spider bites. I lived for 10 years in the tropics, but never saw any person injured by spider bites.
Especially since there is antidote for those few species that were dangerous, there are very few cases of danger due to spider bites.

How do you get rid of this non-functional fear of spiders?

NLP technique: Make a restraining conviction a reinforcing by changing submodalities.

Close your eyes and imagine a big spider while you feel afraid.

Notice which colors you see, which movements you see, that you yourself are also in the picture. Recognize that fear.

Look at your fear, as if it is a thing.

Put the fear to the left side of you.

You have that fear, but you are not that fear, but you are yourself, a valuable person who can decide for himself what you want to be afraid of.

Now look to the right and see how you can be without that fear of spiders.

Be aware that spiders are interesting animals that can spin a very arty web, from a very powerful material.

Now look at the left again and make a picture of it and step out of this picture.

See the picture above.

Move it further away from you, make it smaller, make it grayer, with little contrast, put it even further away and finally push it into the clouds, where you make it disappear.

Now look to your right side to who you are without this fear, but with admiration for these beautiful creatures, who have those very little paws that you could caress you when they walk over your hand.

Feel that admiration from within and let it grow bigger. Feel how proud you are to do this.

Make the picture slowly more colorful, with more contrast and get it closer, stand in it and do what you like to do with this spider, eg watch the web full of admiration.

If you want to test how well this technique worked, you can look up a spider web and allow admiration.