Fear Reversal Imaging

The dictionary definition of fear is a painful emotion marked by alarm, dread or anxiety. To evaluate a fear's necessity for survival, you can use test it with the 'fight or flight' response. Is there protection available? Can you protect yourself by fighting? Is escape available? Can you protect yourself by running away? If you can't justify the fear by fighting or running away, the fear is unnecessary to your survival.

Coupled with the emotion of fear are physiological responses that prepare the body for fight or flight. Muscles tense, mouth gets dry, palms sweat with nervous perspiration, gastric secretions cease, adrenalin is shot into the system, the heart beats faster and the blood pressure rises. If there is no fight or flight energy released by the body, the physiological changes can cause damage to the bodily system. Mostly this is in an accumulative way, but fear has also caused sudden psychological blindness, deafness or speechlessness, hair to turn white or even death.

Fears can be based on a negative expectation of something, sometimes accompanied by feelings of helplessness or some kind of lack. To help yourself, first identify what specifically you are fearful of. You might say you have a fear of flying, but in reality it is a fear of crashing. That is the negative expectation. How do you reverse it? You turn the negative expectation into a positive one.

To reverse a fear of crashing in an airplane, first visualize yourself driving from your home to the airport. You feel calm as you approach the airplane and take your seat inside. See yourself smiling throughout. Everyone around you is happy and thoughtful. Your stewardess gives you a magazine to read and afterwards brings you a meal. Your flight and landing is smooth and peasant. You smile as you leave the plane. You proceed to what the trip was about -- visiting friends, relatives or business associates. You enjoy and complete the visit; then return to the airport and board another plane. After a gentle take-off and smooth flight, you land again and proceed home.

If you perform this visualization exercise at least 3 times a day for one or two weeks prior to your flight, your fear should be greatly alleviated and flying will become expectantly enjoyed. The same process can be employed with any fear. First determine what the negative expectation is, then create a visualization to reverse it into a positive expectation. Everything in your life can be controlled by your thoughts. Remember, you can do anything if you think you can. Since you create your own fears, you can eliminate them too.

Worry is the inward dwelling on something you don't want to happen and should be avoided. When fear is associated with a feeling of helplessness in operating successfully in the world, visualizations can help alleviate this state of mind. Visualizations are very powerful to your body/mind combination, and chemical changes happen in your body as a result of them. If you visualize sucking on a lemon, you can bring about the physiological change of increased salivation. If you visualize being buried alive, the psychological change of terror can be brought about. If you acknowledge these principles, it naturally follows that correct visualizations can bring about beneficial physiological and psychological changes, right?!