What are the top ten worst fears?

I read a fun article the other day describing ten of the worst fears Americans have. For those of you who want to skip to the chase, here’s the list:

  • Dentists
  • Dogs
  • Flying
  • Thunder and lightning
  • The dark
  • Heights
  • Being around people other than family (including speaking in front of groups)
  • Specific places, like elevators, sports arenas, bridges, shopping malls,
  • Spiders, and
  • Snakes
Fear of public speaking
public speaking: one of the top 10 phobias

The article gives all sorts of possible reasons someone might develop such an irrational fear. I’ve worked on a number of them. The interesting thing to me is that, no matter what someone is afraid of, what caused the fear, or how long it’s been tormenting them, the tapping I use can root it out.

I actually enjoy working with clients on their irrational fears. Usually, it doesn’t take very long to find out where the fear came from and get rid of it. We start by tapping on the thought of whatever bothers them — whether it is a critter, an activity, a place, or something else — and pretty soon their brain kicks up a memory that is related to their fear. Sometimes taking care of that one memory is all we need to do; sometimes there is more than one event that we have to tap on. Either way, I always enjoy that look of wonder on my client’s face when we finish and they can’t make themselves afraid of the thing that had given them the screaming meemies before, no matter how hard they try.

Overcome Your Fear of Flying Seminar

I am excited to offer an in-person group in November to help people get control over their fear of flying before the day before Thanksgiving, which is the busiest flying day of the year.

By the way, if you are interested but cannot attend the November seminar, please email me to discuss whether individual telephone sessions might work for you instead.

Here’s the announcement that went out in a recent flyer.

Sponsored by Emmaus Counseling Center

http://www.emmauscounseling.net

Overcome Your Fear of Flying

A Seminar Series dedicated to providing you the tools and techniques to get you flying high

With the holidays rapidly approaching, many people are facing their upcoming air travel with dread. We are pleased to offer a series of three 90-minute classes focusing on a powerful new technique that has already helped many people around the world cope with — and often completely erase — their fear of flying.

In the classes we will use a powerful technique called EFT, or “tapping,” that involves tapping on acupressure points to release locked-in stress. Conventional approaches usually only manage to blunt the stress of fear of flying over the course of months, or even years, of work. Tapping can alleviate the fear in people of all ages in just a few hours or less.

We will work on different common aspects of a fear flying, like claustrophobia or feeling you are out of control, as well as the physical reactions people have like their heart pounding or their stomach clenching up. We will also work on reducing the fear specific memories of difficult flights may still bring up in you. Finally, we will go through all the steps involved in a flight, from buying the tickets to packing and driving to the airport through take-off and landing, using the technique on all the aspects of the flight that cause you stress.

In this seminar, you will learn the basic tapping technique to lower your stress immediately while on a flight, including some subtle tapping steps you can take in a cramped airplane seat without calling attention to yourself. In addition, many people get a significant reduction in their flying stress before they ever have to get on a plane, and some get over their fears completely.  And when the fear is gone, it’s usually gone for good — no more relaxation techniques or medications needed.

Your Instructor, Nancy Linnerooth, has taught tapping to many individuals and groups. She has seen the great relief it has brought to many, and in some cases witnessed her clients’ immediate relief from their fears. As an example, after just one group session, a client went on several flights and found her usually quite severe anxiety was gone except for a bit of apprehension during turbulence, which she simply tapped away during the flight.

She is very excited about helping people get over these sometimes lifelong fears. It can really change lives!

Location: Emmaus Counseling Center, 8290 165th Ave. NE, Redmond, WA 98052

Dates: Monday, November 1, 2010; Monday, November 8, 2010; Monday, November 15, 2010

Time: 6:30 – 8:00 pm

Seminar Fee: $160 for the series. (Please bring a check to your first session.)
The classes will be held in an intimate 10-person setting.

Get started.

Please e-mail me at nancy@unblockresults.com to set up a get-acquainted session over the phone or on Skype to see if I can help you get rid of your blocks to flying.

Fear of Flying and Heights — Gone in One Session

I just wanted to put up a short post about a couple of late holiday “gifts” I received recently. One was helping a client get rid of her fear of flying in an 86-minute session. Of course, we won’t know that her fear is entirely gone until she actually gets on a plane, but she went from being quite tense when she spoke about things like turbulence and the feeling of loss of control while sitting in her seat to not being able to find any stress at all, even when she closed her eyes and thought about the worst flight she could ever imagine. I can’t wait to hear how her mid-winter vacation goes.

https://unsplash.com/photos/T29AcrDfWsY

My second gift was helping another client over her fear of heights in less than an hour. Actually, we’d taken the edge off her fear a few months ago when I introduced a group to the basics of this tapping technique I use. Just that brief amount of time (maybe 15 minutes) was enough to help her be able to cross an icy pedestrian bridge over traffic in windy weather at night without even thinking about it. Before the group, crossing this same bridge on a warm and windless day had her white knuckled and looking straight ahead while trying to get over the bridge as fast as possible.

This time, with a full hour to work together, we got rid of each of the different sensations of fear of looking out of a window in a tall building as they came up. She went from holding her entire body away from the window while looking out (not down) to sticking her head out of the open window and looking straight down at the traffic over twenty stories below us without feeling any fear at all. She kept expecting the fear to come back, but it didn’t.

I never know if someone’s fear will go away in just a session, like these did, or if we will have to do more detective work to find out what is at the base of a fear. Still, it’s wonderful to help my clients to get rid of these kinds of restrictive fears. And it’s just plain fun when it happens so fast.

If you would like to try getting rid of a fear like this on your own, check out my Quick Start Guide to Tapping.

Get started.

Please e-mail me at nancy@unblockresults.com to set up a get-acquainted session by phone or Skype to see if we can get rid of your fear of flying fast.

No Batteries — or Electronics of Any Sort — Required

It turns out there is an iPhone app to help people deal with their fear of flying. This app is based on Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Without Fear course. The app has a video of what to expect on a flight, answers common questions, teaches relaxation exercises, and sends daily reminders to practice those exercises. You can also use it on the flight itself for reassuring tips and breathing exercises, although you can’t use it on takeoff or landing since all mobile devices must be turned off when a plane is below 10,000 feet. The idea is that you learn over time to contain your panic. These are all good things to do to help prepare yourself for a flight.

https://unsplash.com/photos/vRGQqq2Mi9s

Virgin Atlantic’s Fear of Flying course is a significant resource for people who are afraid of flying, and it carries the endorsement of celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg. One might think that the iPhone app would be equally effective. But more than 1/3 of the reviewers on the iPhone app store gave it only 1 or 2 out of a possible 5 stars, mostly because of problems they had using the app while on board the plane. Worse yet, breathing relaxation exercises such as those which appear to be one focus of this program have not been found to be particularly effective in treating fear of flying. (More’s the pity; I love breathing exercises for dealing with stress.)

With less than a week to go before Christmas, it is probably too late to get much help from this app before you get on the plane to Grandma’s anyway, even if it’s more effective than it appears to be. Relaxation exercises like this are meant to be done over time to retrain your brain not to panic in flight.

If you’re dreading your flight, check out my Quick Start Guide to tapping. It details one of the fastest and most effective relaxation exercises I’ve found. While some people need some more detailed work to get over their fear, a lot of people just tap for a few minutes on the aspect or aspects of a flight that bother them most (like turbulence), or a particular fear (like the engines all stopping at once), or a memory of a bad flight and find that their fear is either greatly reduced or gone completely.

If you try the tapping now and still find yourself with white knuckles on your flight, you can do the tapping right there on the plane. It tends to be the most effective at getting rid of a fear for good when used while you are actually doing the thing that you fear, like flying.

Get started.

Please e-mail me at nancy@unblockresults.com to set up a get-acquainted session to see if I might help you with your own fear of flying. Yes, I work over the phone and Skype.