If There is No Fear of Fear, Then Where’s the Fear?

Daman’s first hypnotherapy appointment is in two days, on Friday; however, he calls at 5pm asking if he could come this evening in two hours instead, as he is experiencing some anxiety right this moment. I say yes. This is one of the advantages of working from home. I can easily make myself flexible for clients.

Before he arrives, there comes another phone call. The heavy Indian accented woman tries to sell a Visa Identity Protection Plan. She identifies herself and the conversation goes like this.

– I believe you have a visa with Barclays Bank?

– Yes.

– Are you aware of ID theft that is very serious these days?

– Yes – sort of.

– You must be concerned about your ID safety?

They must be well trained to have NLP “Yes-set” agreement from people they call, but why should I be concerned?

– No.

– Ma’am, the ID theft is the largest concern these days for people.

– Okay.

Then she goes on selling the only $29.99/year product. She doesn’t want to leave a gap in her script reading so that I can have a chance to reject; as if the wonderful script would be enough suggestion if I could simply allow her to finish. She seems to forget that she hasn’t received her 3 yeses from me. What a waste of her time!

Finally she stops with a remark, “so I’ll put a package in the mail for you and you can review it in detail… Is that good for you?”

– No. Please don’t. Your product sounds wonderful and I have no use of it. Thank you very much. I was about to hang up.

– Oh, but…the ID theft, you know…

– That’s the largest concern these days for people, according to you, and that’s a concern that I don’t have.

– But why, ma’am?

– Because I don’t have that concern. I hang up.

An interesting thought pattern that sounds so “logical” yet so hypnotic. The fact that you are aware of something should automatically put you into being concerned about something else, in this case, your own safety, therefore you need to buy a product to protect yourself, and live in worry as a side effect. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Language can work wonders in our minds. In a hypnotherapy session I’d sometimes say, “You can allow yourself to go deeper now because you are wearing a yellow T-shirt.” It works, because “because” is a wonderful word for the mind. There is a part of our mind that loves to be in the “know” of the reasons, no matter how false they actually are.

Let alone to say, the being aware of ID theft part, I actually became aware of it from those phone calls, as I don’t read or watch news at all.

Society is so good at introducing “When this happens, that is what you should do” Pattern, even when we don’t see the necessary linkage.

Daman arrives later than he anticipated, as he travels from Delta to Vancouver West End. He surprises me with his youthful look. He is much younger than he sounds on the phone. And he is a very good-looking young man.

But his pain feels like a thousand years old. He doesn’t take off his jacket in the room, and still leaves the hood on his head all the time.

He starts telling his story. He is 21 years old. As young as he is, he has already been to India to seek for “the truth”, which then brought him to Peru. He lived in the jungle for a few months to learn shamanism. It was there he started to “open up the pineal gland” and started to see UFOs, strange lights every night, and hear voices. He believes there is something or someone watching him, and probably wanting him to die. He is scared. He’s been having insomnia since 13 and now it’s getting worse, as literally he has to sleep with one eye open. He wants to deal with his fears, which he can feel located heavily in his body; and he thinks Past Life Regression will lead him to understand more of himself. And by the way, he definitely wants this life to be his last reincarnation.

Very compelling stories he’s telling. I listen silently, wondering how many psychiatric labels are readily available for this young brilliant suffering soul. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you these. Nobody believes me. I didn’t tell another hypnotherapist when I went to see her two weeks ago. I just asked for a past life regression…” After a pause, a tear or two come down the corner of his eyes. “The hardest part is that I have nobody to tell all of this, even my brother laughed and said I was just hallucinating.”

He came back to Canada only 3 weeks ago, and he went to see another Past Life Regression hypnotherapist two weeks ago in his neighbourhood. “It didn’t work. I couldn’t see anything. And she told me I was not grounded enough.”

“And you believed it?”

“I don’t know, but that seemed to make sense.”

“Yet here you are, still wanting to give it another shot.”

“Because I don’t know what else I can do. I want to go to my subconscious and remove the fear.”

He doesn’t drink water, even though I told him I have bottled water. “The government puts fluoride even in bottled water. That’s the thing that would close down your pineal gland.”

Before we start the hypnosis part, he looks at me and asks the question one more time, “Do you believe what I said? Or do you think I’m crazy? This is very important for me.”

“There’s nothing particular that I believe or disbelieve, but I know every single word you said is true for you.”

I look him straight in the eye, “Daman, don’t make it important how others see you or think of you. Part of your suffering comes from this need for other people to believe what you see or hear is real. If it’s real to you, and you know it is, why do you need other people to believe you so badly? There is never a crowd at where genius is. If Albert Einstein, who was way ahead of his time, had walked around trying desperately to convince everybody his discovery was real, he’d have been too busy doing just that and wouldn’t have had time doing anything else. It’s none of your business, and don’t make a business out of how anybody thinks about anything, including you.”

That almost serves as an induction. He nods his head in agreement and relief and goes into trance. We had a dialogue with the heaviness in the groin area, where he indicates the fear is. And from there, we are led to a past life – quite a long tunnel walk! It is not what he expected, a powerful priest or something similar, but a primitive existence where he was wearing almost nothing but a loin clothe. He was lost in the forest. The next scene his subconscious presents us is that he flies over the forest… and he sees himself looking for someone…and he finds him, the same soul as his brother in this life…

The heaviness feels much lighter after the session. We talk more on fear. I find words coming out of my mouth like, “I know you do a lot of research on the Internet, but you know that they are on the Internet doesn’t make them all true.” “The anticipatory fear is huger than the fear of something. If any of those beings out there, be it aliens or what, want to get you and kill you, do you really think they can’t because you have one eye open when you sleep? I say they could have already killed you easily many times if they really wanted to. But you are still alive, and healthy today. Maybe then, they don’t mean bad. Just because they are unknown doesn’t make them vicious. Do you think it’s possible that they can be simply…friendly?” …

There is a distinguishing moment that he suddenly appears fully awake, as he puts his head down and speaks to the floor, “Wow! Fear of fear! Wow!”

He looks up, and says, “If there is no fear of fear, then, then, where is the fear? Wow!!! Thank you!” We look at each other, couldn’t help but start to laugh.

A month later, a follow up call tells me he is sleeping well and doing much better. He still doesn’t have a lot of friends, as he is not interested in what a “typical” 21-year-old is interested in, but “that’s just fine. I know there’s nothing wrong with me.”