Reply To: Could this be too effective initially to work when really needed?
Peter BunyanHi RHTW
Thanks for your open, honest reply, and sharing it.
Again some thoughts in no particular order.
Seems counter intuitive that something that has such an effect leaves not much of a trace or powerful recollection or series of. This may be the result of previous therapies or we are all “barking up the wrong tree”.
Adrenaline rush is “fight or flight” triggered by fear. This is the most basic of human behaviour drivers, the most immediate. Something bigger than yourself, coming towards you, making loud sudden noises and if it has a large open mouth full of teeth, any or all of these will get you “going” or “freezing”. This is the fear of personal damage, injury or worse in a word, danger! This might be thought of as instinctive but it is a learnt behaviour from other people around us usually our parents when we are young and very impressionable. Imagine a baby old enough to climb out of it's pram unnoticed by it's parents and crawling across the road, it has no fear of the cars coming towards it, it has no understanding of the danger it is in. Now the parents suddenly notice the peril their child is in and rush to pick it up out of danger. The parents now shouting “how did you get out” “don't do that to me” and at each other “I thought you were looking after him” “No you were”. Their strong emotions sensed by the baby now make it cry. It has learnt fears, but not as yet it's highway code. We are still essentially palaeolithic hunter gatherers with a thin veneer of civilisation over the top, dressed up in fancier fashionable clothes. We have the same feelings but our behaviours are more sophisticated, modified to make us fit in with society, to obey the many rules which make it all work, (most of the time).
Fast forward some years the baby now at school, learning to socialize. The playgound jostling and group positioning make us learn our place in the pecking order. We also learn how to behave and speak politely in order to grease the wheels of our civilised society. This learning is sometimes engendered in children with the “Don't do that, what would the neighbours think of us” “Behave yourself in public” kind of thing. When I was young brought up as a Catholic, running around in church or even fidgeting in the pew and such childlike behaviour was not acceptable. Consider if we did misbehave people would think we were out of control young animals, tut tut! This is adults pushing their fears into children. But it is done over a period of years with many incidents, with many variations, but no great traumas, on a drip, drip basis, the repetitions making the fears “sink in”. Fast forward again this child is now grown up a reasonably successful person, well liked, but cannot always achieve their aims as they get nervous and worry about what others might think or say about them.
Having proposed this theoretical history which might explain your sort of situation, the question remains what to do about it? How to use PSTEC to remove these fears?
Whilst you can Click Track just generally thinking about your problem it tends to work better with a narrower focus. Once you have had some noticeable success even if on a small minor problem then you know it works and are more likely to have success on a bigger issue, because you “know” it works.
Even though the fear of public speaking thing might be regarded as an aspect of social anxiety, a small thing, to you it is not. So I suggest breaking down the various aspects of speaking that worry you and Click Track them individually, you have mentioned some.
[color=rgb(68, 68, 68)]“Fear of being looked at (how other people see me)[/color][color=rgb(68, 68, 68)]Fear of my voice sounding shaky (Sometimes the adrenaline means I am taking a breath at the wrong time or failing to take a breath)Fear of going red and blushingFear of being judgedFear of feeling panic”[/color]
[/color][color=rgb(68, 68, 68)][/color][color=rgb(68, 68, 68)]
The first one seems to me to be the main one because you say later
“[/color][color=rgb(68, 68, 68)]I would say I do have other social anxieties but not as strong as the public speaking one. All tend to relate to how I believe I am perceived by other people.”[/color][color=rgb(68, 68, 68)]
[/color][color=rgb(68, 68, 68)][/color][color=rgb(68, 68, 68)]
So your issue is not “Fear of Public Speaking” as such but fear of what others might say or feel about you. This is fear of a potential loss of self esteem.
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This also leads me to suggest Click Tracking any incidents where that anxiety about other peoples perceptions comes “into the picture”.
This nibbling away at the problem approach might take some time, but keep going. Many others have found that as they progress incidents and memories that they have not recalled for years resurface. Write down these “random recollections” as soon as you can and Click Track them when you can.
When you are familiar with the FREE Basic Click Tracks you might find the PSTEC Click Tracks 2015 helpful. As well as being more powerful, there is an extra track which enables bundling together of many related memories/incidents.
Hope the above gives you new avenues to explore. Please let me know.
Peter
[/color][color=rgb(68, 68, 68)][/color][color=rgb(68, 68, 68)]