Overcoming my Fears

Questions for  the ‘Stutterer” concerning the fearing of judgments from others

Friday evening, April 11, 2008, the e-mail list enjoyed reading the following post:

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“Hi from Turkey. Yesterday, I had a job interview in a bank. It was easy to speak Turkish(ah Ok, not very easy but I have some starting words and can use them well) however I needed to speak English in order to communicate with the French Manager. Since I don’t have any starting words or any formulas to speak semi-fluent In English, That was terrible moments for me while I was trying to speak English. Anyway, the French man told me to write down a letter what I would say, my objection, background etc. And of course I wrote it down there. Now I have a chance to get the job. That was the first time that I came across such an understanding manager. I felt very nice and relaxed. I wanted to share such experience with you.”

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His email once again reminded my of just how much the “fearing of the harsh judgments of others” provides the triggering for blocking.  Recently a person who stutters mentioned that when he was with his peers at work, he was relaxed and comfortable and because he was in a relaxed state he did not block or stutter when speaking to his peers. But, the boss man walked in and that old “fear of authority” that he had had since childhood kicked in.  And, sure enough, when he spoke to his boss, he blocked several times.  Why did he block?  He blocked because of his fearing authority figures. Now, I didn’t communicate with him but I have worked therapeutically with many people who stutter in similar situations. Because they fear that they will stutter in front of authority figures they do block and stutter just because they fear it. The fear triggers their blocking and stuttering strategy and that almost guarantees that they will stutter.  Remove the fear and anxiety about stuttering and you remove much stuttering.

I responded to the post from the gentleman in Turkey.  I provided some of the questions that I use in my work with People Who Stutter. Many People Who Stutter have found this type questioning quite helpful in dealing the psychology of fear and anxiety and the part it plays in triggering the behavior of stuttering.

I replied to the post from Turkey:

Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Your experience provides further evidence of just how incorrect is the belief that many People Who Stutter hold concerning their believing that people judge them harshly because they stutter. I am convinced that the number of people who judge harshly the Person Who Stutters is much lower than believed.

The “fear of what others think of you because you stutter” provides the trigger for much of blocking & stuttering. Fearing their judgments leads to feeling powerless about speaking to other people. This feeling of powerlessness dramatically increases the state of fear and anxiety.  And, it is this fear and anxiety in fact that triggers the person’s strategy for blocking instead of their strategy for fluency.

I would like to take your experience and provide some questions for our membership to ask themselves about fearing other’s judgment.

I encourage all on the list to take an inventory of your communication over the past few days. Then ask yourself the following questions. I encourage you to print this email off and use it as a “sheet of reference” that you refer to over a period of a few days if not even a few weeks:

1. “How many times did I block and/ or stutter?”
2. “How many of those times that I blocked and stuttered were triggered by my fear that the people with whom I was talking with were or might judge me in a bad way because I stutter?”
3. “What percentage of my blocking and stuttering is triggered by my fearing that people will judge me as being ‘different’; as being ‘less than’; as being a ‘retard’; as being ‘stupid’;, etc?”
4. “How accurate is my belief about others judging me harshly because I stutter?”
5. “What thinking lies behind my fear of people judging me?”
6. “Is that thinking true to fact NOW?”
7. “Even if someone would judge me harshly, does it make sense for me to be afraid of them?”
8. “How old do I feel when I fear that someone may judge me because I stutter?”
9. “Do I feel younger than I am now?”
10. “How old do I feel when I fear someone judging me?”
11. “What would happen if I were to go to that younger me (Do visually, self talk, or by moving loving and accepting feelings to the younger me.) and give that  younger me love and acceptance because that  younger part is a vital part of me that is in desperate need of love and acceptance?”
12. “How will my speech change if I were too mentally ‘grow that younger me’ up?”
13. “How old am I?  Am I not old enough to now understand that I have absolutely no reason to fear the judgments and thoughts of others?”
14. “If I am in fact trying to communicate with adults while I am feeling like a child, is it any wonder that I block?”
15. “If I were to view myself at my present age and speak from that ‘me’ that is now an adult or soon to be an adult, how would my speaking be?”
16. “From whom did I learn to be fearful of sharing myself through speaking?”
17. “What is it back there in the recesses of my mind that is holding me back from sharing myself with others?”
18. “As a person who stutters, how do I view myself?  Do I love myself?  If I really did love myself, how would my speaking change?”
19. “If I gave myself permission ‘to not be perfect’, how would my speech change? Is it really OK for me to fail?”

This line of questioning challenges the irrationality of that part of the Person Who Stutters fearing the judgments of someone else. It challenges fearing the judgments that generates the fear and anxiety that in fact initiates blocking and stuttering. Questions like the above leads the Person Who Stutters to “step outside” for a moment the fear of blocking and to step into an “adult mindset” that critically examines the thinking that triggers blocking.

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
www.masteringstuttering.com

Power Point Presentation

PDF Document

 

Case Studies
“Fear of Public Speaking” and “Agoraphobia”

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
With Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D. Min.

There are so many patterns in NLP and NS (Neuro-Semantics) for dealing with fear that we found that we could not use all of them when we put the training manual Mastering Your Fears (2000) together. So we picked the best to design the training that Bob is currently doing at Gaston College.

Along the line of working with and modeling the subjective experience that goes under the heading of “fear” we found that not only are there a wide-range of experiences that fall under this category, but that there are some experiences that are so-called “fear” that have nothing to do with fear. In such cases, an experience has been anchored to the term “fear,” but falsely so. Fear at meta-levels can differ radically from fear at primary levels and can take on some very different properties. Here are some examples.

Fear of Public Speaking

“I’m still afraid of public speaking. I don’t know what didn’t work about the ‘Phobia Cure,’ but it didn’t work. I felt better for awhile; but I was still afraid. I guess I need something more powerful than that. Do you have something specifically for public speaking?”

The gentleman, a professional in his field, had studied NLP and had become a practitioner. I also knew that he held himself to a high standard and that “walking his talk” was really important to him so that he would not have been the kind to have only run the pattern in a half-baked way or to have excused himself with stupid excuses.

Tell me, how do you know you’re afraid of public speaking.

How do I know? Because I get afraid every time I speak in public.

Really? And how do you actually know that you’re afraid?

Well, because I get nervous mainly. And my hands sweat and my heart is beating fast and my stomach feels queasy. That kind of thing.

That’s all? (I said in a credulous and doubting tonality.) I still don’t understand how you know to call that “fear;” that’s what I feel when I get “excited.”

Well, it’s really uncomfortable.

Yeah? (More incredulity and with a tone of “You’ve got to do better than that!)

Well, there’s the nervous energy. I never start out very smoothly, sometimes I even stumble for my words and I nervously move my hands…

Yeah? That still sounds like it could be excitement and possibly the lack of thorough training in gesturing. What is there about any of that which has to be labeled “fear?” That’s what I want to know.

It’s not fear? But it feels fearful.

That’s what I don’t understand yet, how do you know it’s “fearful?”: Do you freeze up and can’t talk?

Well, no. I always finish the speech.

Well, maybe you have the fearful cognitions of wanting to run away? Is that’s what’s going on? You really don’t want to do public speaking?

No. I do want to speak in public. It’s great for my career, it helps me to influence others and that kind of thing. And I’m actually pretty good at it.

Well, maybe you’re scared to death of what others’ think? Afraid of criticism, afraid of being rejected as a worthless human being? That you’ll be disgraced by your incompetence?

(Laughing) No, no. It’s not that. I do want to make a good impression. That’s why I do the extensive preparations that I do.

So you’re not wetting your pants in fear about messing up and looking like a fool?

(Laughing even harder) No. Of course not!

Well, Todd, I think we have here a case of a mistaken label. It doesn’t sound like fear to me at all. It sounds like the marvelous excitement of really wanting to knock their socks off.

But I don’t like the feelings that I…

That’s the problem! (I said interrupting)

You mean I’ve meta-stated myself with a dislike of my nervousness and have falsely mislabeled it “fear?”

Exactly.

And that would explain why the NLP Phobia Pattern didn’t work with me? It wasn’t a phobia in the first place?

Precisely. You weren’t phobic of anything. Did you ever have a traumatic public speaking experience that invited you to set the frame that “Public speaking is dangerous?”

No.

And your thoughts about public speaking?

Well, ah … that I like it; that it promotes my influence, that it’s important in my career, … and that I don’t like being nervous.

Ah, the meta-state structure! You “don’t like being nervous.” You don’t get a kick out of feeling and sensing your whole body revving up and getting ready to let them have it!

Yes, I guess that’s it. I have always thought that “nervousness” meant fear and was a bad thing.

Like the first time you had sex. If you felt nervous about it, that had to mean that you were a flop, not really excited, scared of women, that kind of …

(Interrupting me with laughter) I get it. I get it. You made your point.

Todd just had a bad relationship with “nervousness.” He didn’t like the experience of nervousness and he didn’t like the idea or concept of being nervous. For the first, I just coached him into using deep breathing and relaxation to give him the edge on turning the nervousness into managed excitement so that he “had” it rather than it having him (Instant Relaxation, 1998). With the meta-state of dislike of the idea of being nervous because of all the things it had come to mean to him, we reframed its meaning, accessed acceptance and appreciation of his nervousness so that he could “dwell more comfortably in his skin with the fact that nerves sometimes generate somatic energy.”

I then meta-stated him with several other resources. If you have eyes and ears to detect the meta-levels and meta-states, you can catch frames that I set for him:

Todd, since you’ll be speaking to a group on Thursday, I want you to use it to see if you can use your managed nervousness and come up with three gestures that you can use to transform it into “excitement.” And every time you feel the sensations that you have called “fear,” I want you to imagine a resourceful voice saying, ‘Not fear, anticipation of how I’m going to knock their socks off!’ And as you do that, just experiment with how much nervousness you can translate into excitement knowing that as you do, it is increasing your professional skills as a public speaker.

When “Fear” is Mis-Labeled

We have found that fear is most often mis-labeled, as it was with Todd, because we can so easily confuse another emotion with it– namely, the emotion of “dislike.” Todd disliked a certain set of sensations and had learned or been taught or somewhere picked it up that those sensations mean “fear.” Consider some of the things that you say you fear.

Criticism
Rejection
Insult
Public speaking
Taking a risk Elevators
Small places
Cold calling etc.

Now step back from your frames and wonder, really wonder, “Could I just dislike the sensations, or some facet of the experience, or the idea of it and only be confusing fear for my dislike?”

Not being turned on about taking on the dislikes and disapprovals of others (“criticism,’ “rejection”) strikes me as a pretty normal response. What if, instead of it being a fear, your experience really indicates that you do not particularly like it, not particular drawn to it with total excitement, “Oh, Boy!,” or even that you just lack some of the necessary skills to handle that event with grace and dignity.

I (MH) worked with a group of agoraphobics a number of years ago. They had (and have) an Agoraphobics Association. I always thought that was kind of paradoxical. They asked me to come out to the leader’s house to work with them. Usually, 5 to 7 people would show up. After establishing rapport, I asked,

If you’re agoraphobic, how are you able to drive here to Ruth’s house?

Well, we’re not as agoraphobic as Ruth. That’s why we have to have it here at her house, she can’t leave her house at all, but we can leave ours.

Right. That makes sense. So there’s a rating system in how agoraphobic a person may be.

Yeah. Some people are very agoraphobic and some are in the process of getting more afraid and others are in the process of becoming less afraid.

So tell me, what are you afraid of specifically? What’s the worse thing that will happen to you if you leave your house. Ruth, since you’re the most skilled at this ability, or “the worst,” what scares the hell out of you so much? (I said that with more of a tone of levity than seriousness.)

Well, I don’t know… not when you put it that way.

Well, I mean with all the car jackers here in Grand Junction, there’s got to be something that would be the worst possible thing that you could possibly imagine.

Well, I just get uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. My heart begins to pound, and I sweat and I begin to worry, ‘what if I freeze?’ and then I just have to pull over and get my breath and head back home.

Oh, so you do leave home?

Not really. Not anymore. Just if I have to go to the store for some food if my husband can’t leave work and do it.

Ruth, if you did not have this program inside your head that scared the hell out of you when you left the house, and you had a normal response to leaving home, what would you life be like? What would you be doing with yourself?

Well, I used to work. I was a receptionist and …

That’s what you’d like to return to do?

No, not really. I didn’t like that at all.

So what would you do?

I don’t know.

Pretend that you do know and just describe what you’d love to be doing.

Well, ah… I really don’t have anything that I’d like to be doing.

Do you like what you’re doing now… staying at home and all?

Well, yes. I get to do some of the crafts and things that I love to do. … but it’s such a hassle to not be able to go to the Mall or other stores to get supplies.

So you just do without?

Oh no. Larry picks them up for me.

You know, Ruth, it sounds like you have a wonderful life and wonderful lifestyle and that you’re not really an agoraphobic at all. You just love staying home, being waited on, and being treated as special for this so-called agoraphobia.

(Stunned silence.. . Hurt looks… ) You just don’t understand.

I left the dialogue there and turned to another. Three years later Ruth wrote a letter and said that she was never more shocked, anger, upset, and hurt than by what I had said to her in front of the group that evening. But that it was all true and she hated to admit it, and that she couldn’t admit it at the time. She said she had come to realize that she hid her anger, but would fret and stew every Wednesday and Thursday prior to the meetings. And unknown to me, she complained to the others that I didn’t know what I was doing and that we should stop having me come, that I was making her agoraphobia worse.

And that went on for several weeks until two of the other persons confronted her by using the same questions. And when they asked the questions, she couldn’t complain that they didn’t understand and because they were “getting better,” they pushed the questions until it became clear that fear was an excuse. That the real issue was a willingness to take on and accept some of the more unpleasant facets of life, to accept distressful feelings as just feelings, and to face the discomfort through building up more resourceful responses.

In her letter, Ruth said that the moment came when she decided to stop calling her experience fear and agoraphobia.

“Once I dropped those labels, everything was strange for awhile. I kept saying to myself, ‘What do I call this?’ And eventually I decided to call it, ‘being out of my Comfort Zone,’ and as I decided that was okay, then I began asking the questions that you zapped me with, ‘What do I really want?'”

Thereafter she began making plans, and re-orienting the focus of her life. She shifted it from what she didn’t want, to what she did want. She began driving again. She found a job that she really enjoyed, and she re-entered the life “of the normals” as she expressed it.

This doesn’t mean that all agoraphobics have this same experience or structure, but provides one example of how one person (actually several) mis-labeled their experience, too comfort in the label, and then began building their lives and identities around the label.

When “Fear” Goes Meta

Feeling afraid of a specific event, person, situation, or external referent in our world provides us the informational value and signal that all emotions provide. This makes them useful. They then become feedback to us about the relationship between our model of the world and our experience of the world. The emotion as such tells us that we need to adjust one or the other, or both. And the emotional also provides us the energy to make some adjustment.

However, when we react to any of our reactions of thought or emotion with fear and begin to fear ourselves, our states, our emotions, our thoughts, etc., when we begin to dread and feel apprehension about a meaning, an idea, a concept, what we may become, what we may find, etc., then the “fear” becomes something other than primary level fear. Now it becomes a taboo against ourselves, a corroding and weakening of ego strength so that we make ourselves an enemy to reality, to human experience, to our fallibilities, to ideas, etc. This can lead to repression, psychosomatic problems, unsanity, weakening of our personal power, etc.

Such “fear” puts us at odds with ourselves. In constructing such “fear of self,” this can take so many forms: fear of our sexuality, fear of our assertiveness, fear of our passions, fear of being a fallible human being, fear of being vulnerable, fear of sadness, fear of excitement, fear of the idea of getting fat, fear of the idea of being rejected, etc.

And, when we begin to bring fear against ourselves and against our ideas, feelings, awarenesses, etc., this seems to start an ongoing process that can, and often does, worsen with time. It’s a basic meta-stating process in that we create it so simply. We reflect back onto ourselves and “fear” an experience and especially some idea of what that means. Consider that, we fear what something means. Then, because “fear” makes us freeze, fight, and/or flee– we then experiences those reactions to ourselves, the feeling, the idea, etc.

Yet this kind of “fear” (if we can even call it that at this level) begins a corroding and destructive process. In Meta-States trainings, as well as the basic books, Meta-States and Dragon Slaying, we constantly emphasize that mostly if we bring negative thoughts and feelings against ourselves we create “dragon like states” so that we experience a self-created self-conflict.

This kind of “fear” does not respond well to the NLP Phobia Cure. Why? Because it is not a fear of an external referent. It is rather a “fear” (dread, dislike, upset, stress, anger etc.) of what something means, an idea, our experience, etc. For this kind of so-called “fear,” we need reframing. We need to set a new frame (i.e., meta-state ourselves) with some resource that creates a higher level structure that allows us to face, accept, appreciate, own, etc. the idea, experience, state, or whatever.

That’s why so-called “paradoxical” things work so well here.

• “Try really hard to freak out when I say this word, mention this idea, etc.”
• “I want you to fully embrace and welcome your fear … as you do, listen to it and notice what informational value it has for you. What does it say?”
• “As you look with the eyes of appreciation at that idea or feeling that you’ve been afraid of, just for a moment, look beyond the immediate things it does and look for its higher values and intentions. How does it seek to serve you?”

Summary

All fear is not the same. This is the nature and wonder and marvel of meta-levels. This is the value of understanding what Korzybski called “multiordinality.” Experiencing love at the primary level differs from loving our love. We call that “infatuation.” And loving our infatuation then becomes “romanticism” or something. At each higher level, the nature, feel, and experience of the same emotion transforms into something different. So with fear. At each level it transforms itself.

Knowing that, always begin by asking the referent question:

• What are you afraid of?
• Is the referent of your fear out there in the world or a state, experience, idea, etc.?
• At what level is this fear? Is it one level up, two, three, etc.?

References

Bodenhamer, Bobby; Hall, Michael. (2000). Mastering your fears. Spiral manuscript of training manual. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications.

Hall, L. Michael (2000, second edition). Meta-States: Mastering the higher levels of mind, Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications.

Hall, L. Michael; Bodenhamer, Bobby (1999). The structure of excellence: Unmasking the meta-levels of submodalities. Grand Jct. CO: E.T. Publications.

Leder, Debra; Hall, L. Michael. (1998). Instant relaxation. Wales, UK: Crown House Publications.

Overcoming the “Fear of Flying”
A Case Study

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.

When I sat down think about all of the NLP and Meta-State patterns that address the experience of fear, I felt both surprised and delighted. My intent was to gather highly effective patterns and to present them in a Workshop format at the local college to begin my eighth year there teaching NLP. My partner, Michael Hall, and I discovered enough patterns for a ten week coarse. Over several months, we put together our newest training manual, Mastering Your Fears: An NLP/Neuro-Semantics Approach to Mastering Fear and Anxiety.

How many patterns are there for intervening with a fear response? Dozens. Of course, we begin with the “Phobia Pattern” to alter the way a person codes fear– from associated to a dissociated. There’s deframing the meanings that a person has given to some event, experience, stimulus that creates a sense of danger or threat. There’s the Reframing of the meanings, adding new resources, changing past referents, collapsing anchors, meta-stating the fear with new resources to give the fear a more appropriate texture, dropping down through emotional states, etc.

There are many patterns and mixtures of patterns that we can use and intertwine in order to coach a person into a fear mastery state. We have focused on mastering fear, not eliminating since “fear” as an emotion is just a message and may be appropriate. We may need to listen to it and take counsel from it. For inappropriate and unreasonable fears, we need to take courage to face them and to act in spite of them. It’s for irrational and demonized fears that become part of identity, character, and higher frame of mind, that we need to eliminate.

I have provided a transcript of working with a woman who had given in and taken far to much counsel of her fear of flying. In brackets [], I have noted the bits and pieces of various NLP and NS (Neuro-Semantic) patterns.

The Art of Freaking Out About Flying

Wanda’s personal coach referred her to me to assist her in dealing with her fear of flying. Since her work requires her to fly a lot, and was still flying, but feeling more and more nervous about it.

“Some of my worse fears of flying are in good weather. I don’t even have to be in a plane to feel afraid. I can panic at home just thinking about flying. First I become nervous, then my heart rate speeds up.”

“Wanda, you can even run this ‘fear of flying’ strategy in calm weather?” I asked. “And, you can even run this fear of flying at home?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Yes it sounds like you have ‘anticipatory anxiety.’ But, of course, I’m in the ‘de_labeling’ business. So I want to figure out what you’re doing inside your head to run this ‘fear of flying’ program. When we know that, we’ll deframe that old program. Sound good?

“Yes.”

“So, Wanda, you become afraid of flying even when you are home? How do you do that? It’s quite a skill to get nervous, to speed up your heart rate, and to feel afraid. What do you have to see, hear, feel to trigger this, or how do you know when to become afraid of flying?”

“When I’m in a plane and we hit turbulence, I get really nervous.”

“So turbulence is the trigger? You have to feel nervous about flying when you are in turbulence?”

“Well, yes. I get really nervous and my heart speeds up when the plane hits turbulence.”

“When you are in a plane and you hit turbulence, you get really nervous?”

“Yes.”

[All this gathers critical information about how and when the strategy works.]

“What about when you are at home? How do you get nervous about flying when you are not in a plane? I assume that you don’t always fear flying when you are not flying?”

“No. I’m not always thinking about flying and being nervous. It’s just when I think about flying that I get nervous . . . It’s when I think about we may hit turbulence that I get nervous. When I think that we may hit turbulence, that’s when I get nervous. If I hear that the weather will be bad before I leave the house for the airport, I get really, really nervous.”

[Looking for the Exception Frame, “When does it not occur?” And the Trigger Frame: “How do you do it apart from the external trigger?”]

“Ah, so, you don’t get nervous about flying until the thought of turbulence comes to mind?”

“Yes, that is right. It is about turbulence.”

“Have you always been afraid of turbulence? How long have you been afraid of turbulence?”

“No, I haven’t always been afraid. Ten years ago I was in a plane that hit an air pocket. I had forgotten about it until you asked. The plane dropped several hundred feet immediately. It horrified me!”

“And are you feeling that horror now?”

“Yes… yes I am.”

“As you experience that horror, do you have a picture in your mind?’

“Yes.”

“And what exactly you see?”

“I see the inside of the cabin (motioning her hands around as if inside an airplane cabin). I see the people and all the stuff going everywhere.”

“So, it’s like you’re seeing inside the cabin. You see the people. And you see things going all over the plane?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Do you see yourself in the picture or just the other people, the seats and the things flying?”

“I just see all the other. I do not see myself.”

[Exploring the Representational Coding Frame: “How is it coded?”]

Creating Fear– Associating and Layering

This description told me that Wanda was associating back into the plane every time she hit turbulence in a flight. Because she did not see herself in the picture, she was imagining herself back in the plane. Further, she was doing the same thing each time she even thought about flying in turbulence.

Most phobic type reactions happen this way. We unconsciously associate back into the fearful experience(s) and layer our thoughts with the same thoughts of fear and anxiety, i.e., “the plane is falling. I am going to die!” Since our brain does not know the difference between representations just imagined and those triggered by outside stimuli, associated images of past fearful experiences cue our brains to re-experienced the fear. This creates the semantic reaction.

When Wanda thought about flying in turbulence, she automatically associated into that old plane dropping memory and she re-experience similar emotions as she originally did. Usually I like to invite a person to dissociate immediately, but as Wanda followed the absurdity of her thinking so well, I decide to go another way. She said,

“I know the plane isn’t going to drop but I am thinking, ‘the plane is going to drop!'”

“Right. You know the plane isn’t going to drop. You know that isn’t happening now. It isn’t real now.”

“I know. At least one part of me knows that.”

[Separating out different meta-frames, the Reality Frame versus the Fear Feeling Frame.]

“So, in essence you’re afraid of your fear about the plane dropping?”

(Laughing, she said,) “Yes, I guess I am.”

[Flushing out the first meta-level state about a state Frame.]

At that point, I drew an illustration of how we create paranoia by fearing our fear (See Figure 1). “Wanda, as you look at this sketch. It provides a way of diagramming the structural dynamics that explains how our brain works in creating our experiences, even our fear experiences.

“First we experience the world through our five senses. So when the plane dropped, you experienced it in terms of the sights, sounds, sensations, etc. that your body registered.

“Secondly, we recall an experience using our sensory code. What we see, we recall as pictures. What we sense in our feelings, we recall as feelings. What we hear, we recall as sounds. All of this becomes an internal image. We re-present our experiences on the screen of our minds through pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes.

“Then, to that image or representation, we give it meaning with words. We say, “The plane is falling.”

“Yet we don’t stop there. We then have thoughts about thoughts. “I am going to die!” “Whew, that will make you nervous and cause your heart to palpitate, want it?”

“And as time goes on following a terrifying experience like a plane falling, we continually run these thoughts and so create a mental filter. Thereafter we experience the world through that filter. “Flying in planes is dangerous.’ It began with fear and then it evolved into fearing our fear. This creates paranoia and anxiety.

And, based on that horrifying experience and through running that thought these ten plus years, you have created a filter through which you experience flying in an airplane. That filter always looks for turbulence.

[Insight Frame about the construction, growth, and power of mental frames.]

Figure 1
Meta-Stating Into a Mental Filter

Frames of Mind Attract

“Wanda, our mental frames such as beliefs, values, convictions, decisions, understandings, ideas, etc., function as attractors. They attract things that support their existence. For instance, if I believe I am incompetent at some task, not only will I not attempt the task, but I will also constantly look for reasons to prove that I am incompetent. And though there could be many instances giving testimony that I could do the task, I won’t see them. The “incompetent frame” will filter them out. Does that make sense?

“Yes, so if I am afraid of turbulence, I will ‘create’ turbulence in my mind in order to make my fear work whether it is there or not.”

“Yes, that’s correct. And how many times has that frame of mind created ‘turbulence’ when there was no turbulence?”

(Laughing), “I am afraid too many times.”

[Eliciting a Humor Frame about the silliness of engaging the whole Fear Strategy apart from any appropriate trigger. Laughter gives us distance from our own processes.]

“You said you had a picture of the inside of the airplane?”

“Yes.”

“And, as you see the inside of that airplane as it drops, what do you feel?”

“I feel tightness (placing her hand over her stomach).”

“So, you feel tightness and it is right there in your stomach?”

“Yes.”

“And what do you feel underneath the tightness? … Feel it… and now just drop down through the tightness … and what is underneath it?”

(Going into a mild trance) “Nothing. I don’t feel anything.”

[Using the Drop Down Through Process… Framing an Emotion as having something Underneath it… Frame.]

“Great. And, what is under the ‘nothing?’ Just drop down through and out the other side.”

“Calm, I feel a calm.”

“Great. You feel calm. Now, what is under the calm? What feeling supports calm?”

“Space. I just feel a sense of space. It is extremely calm.”

“And being there in that calm space, what happens to fear of turbulence?”

“It is gone. I can’t feel it.”

[Bringing these Resourceful feelings to bear upon the Turbulence, a meta-stating process of Resource Application Frame.]

“Wonderful. I see doves out the deck (I keep bird feeders), they look so calm and peaceful.”

“Yes, doves are a symbol of peace.”

[Using a Metaphoring Frame… “What is this like”? Then bring that to bear upon the problem.]

“So anytime you should experience a little of that fear or anxiety of turbulence you can just recall sitting here and seeing the doves and know how calm you can feel whether you’re at home or in a plane. The fear that began it all happened a long time ago. It isn’t happening now, and chances are it will never happen to you again.  Just feel greater calm as you see the doves.”

[Future pacing Frames… Past Frames… Resource Frames.]

After this, I had her future pace the feelings as she imagined flying and experiencing turbulence… recalling the doves and feeling the calmness and relaxation and so enjoying her flight. About a month after this session she sent the following E-mail and has graciously given permission to share it:

“I just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, my first flight since our session. Thank you so much, again, for helping me. … As you know, my nervousness didn’t have as much to do with actual turbulence as it did with the anticipation of fear. So I didn’t need actual bad weather to make me nervous. I was so calm on this LA trip. It was just amazing. On the return flight, I had to deal with a canceled flight, missed connections, and an announcement of severe thunderstorms. Normally, that would have been enough to put me over the edge since when I’m really tired (and I was exhausted after a 16 hour day of airports), I am more susceptible to nervousness.

Anytime the flight got bumpy or they announced coming turbulence, I just went to that ‘place’ you showed me how to access. I am still amazed that it works so well. I simply said the word “peace” to myself, and I was no longer on that bumpy plane. I was back with you watching the doves… Then I went from there to this beautiful valley at the base of a mountain. At the base of the mountain, I was engulfed by that great sense of nothingness I told you about. The sound of an eagle overhead was the only sound I heard. It is the most relaxed sensation I have ever felt. I never sleep on planes, and I slept for hours both going and returning. Take offs and landings were fun! I actually enjoyed flying again. Simply amazing!

While I was in LA, I read an article in USA Today about a technique for fear of flying that used very expensive virtual reality equipment. The treatment was long and very expensive. I wanted to write the author and tell him he was looking in all the wrong places. But you are right. Why should they give up thousands of dollars when you “fixed” me in less than hour? Bob, thanks so much for your help.”

Regards,

Wanda

Though we had scheduled a two-hour session, we were finished in less than one hour. I love it when it turns out that way even though it doesn’t always work this quickly. It worked this quickly with Wanda because her fear was anchored in primary experience of a one-time event, in the sudden descent of the plane. When a fear and or anxiety is anchored in years of experiences that have numerous higher level frames (meta-levels) of references that has coalesced into a primary frame of reference, it takes more work to tease out the solidifying layers. But, no fear, they can be teased out and reframed.

Framing “Fear” so that We Live Masterfully

Ultimately, fear is just an emotion. Whether it accurately or inaccurately cues us about particular actions we should or should not take depends upon the evaluations that create the danger-threat-feelings. We master our fears as we understand the cognitions from which they arise, the evaluations, standards, values, and compare them to the sensory based information before us.

Fear can be our friend and a useful ally. Fear of fear, fear of ourselves, fear of any other emotion, fear of ideas, concepts, memories, imaginations, etc., this is the kind of fear that does us damage. With NLP and NS we have so many ways, methods, and processes for understanding fear, dealing with fear, and mastering fear.