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Part 1. Work through Phobias and Panic Attacks
1.5. How one can overcome fear and enjoy living
A case from practice. Fear of fainting
ОглавлениеA frail girl
Lina is afraid of fainting and dying. She is 20 years old, with an oblong face shape and thin arms. There’s another reason why she looks frail: she eats very little, she’s very picky because food often makes her nauseous. Her mother is always by her side because Lina is afraid that she might feel unwell and there’ll be no one to help her. They came to the session together.
Lina is an emotionally warm person; she has a boyfriend who doesn’t seem to make a big deal of her hypochondria due to his cheerful character. On one hand, this relationship is a great help for Lina but on the other – she’s too afraid to lose it. She has decided that if they break up, she’ll become a nun.
Instinctive fear
Seven years ago Lina fainted: for some time before it happened, she had been suffering from headaches, spinal problems, hormone fluctuations and meteosensitivity. She thought she was dying.
Fortunately, that episode didn’t end tragically, but the whole experience was rather unpleasant and difficult to understand for Lina. The fear settled in. She began taking medication, which didn’t help, and only caused complications. Lina started having thoughts about committing suicide and demanded that someone always be by her side. An admission to the psychiatric facility was being planned as the next step.
Lina lost faith in restoring her health. However, zest for life and the wish to finally get rid of the painful fear hadn’t left her completely, and she agreed to follow my simple instructions.
The first drawing that Lina made sent her to the age when the symptoms appeared. There was a big head, a round, somewhat “inflated” body with “poor” triangular limbs. Some additional elements were drawn on the head, which pointed to the fact that Lina had vasospasms, organic problems, and that her brain had oxygen deficiency.
Working hypothesis
When Lina was fainting, she couldn’t understand what was going on with her, and as a result her body absorbed the fright that her life was about to end. Protective mechanisms, which had been guarding her life, received an emergency call, got activated and remained in this state for many years. Nevertheless, when you post a sentry, you can also relieve a sentry when they are no longer needed.
Under the influence of an erroneous danger signal, our body starts to do unnecessary extra work which is exhausting; and it’s not just a matter of energy. More than that, this “guarding” system takes up so much effort and strength that there is no energy left to live a normal life. We all require the ability to make sound decisions, and in order to make good decisions, you should first get rid of the erroneous assumption that was sent to the depths of the body.
Clear the body of the fright
How can one find that alien element which has entered the body? In this case one can turn to the practice of “detecting” it as something material, as matter.
Lina and I are working together, relying on her immediate sensations.
Which zones of her body respond when she experiences discomfort, anxiety and fear? Where can she locate the sensations which are connected with these tensions?
It turned out that they were hidden at the level of her head and core. First of all, I tried to find out what caused the tension:
“What got into your forehead? What does your head feel like?”
“The air is grey, thick and dark,” says Lina.
“Do you need it there?”
“No,” she says without any hesitation.
“Why don’t you let it out through the same place it came in?”
“It has started coming out as smoke through my ears,” Lina is describing the process of self-regulation that has just begun.
“How much of it has already left your body?” I asked her some time later in order to support the internal work she was doing.
“About 70%.”
“Wonderful progress!”
“In my head I can feel some pleasant emptiness with white walls,” she says two or three minutes later.
“Observe the ‘emptiness’. It’s quite likely that your body will get rid of it too; this is how you will help your body to ‘spread its wings’.”
And this is exactly what happened:
“The box has shrunk and disappeared,” Lina added.
“Thus the space in your head has gone. Look if there’s anything happening at the level of your chest or lower.”
“The same ‘smoke’ has started coming out of my chest and through my mouth.”
“Soon it was out too.”
“Is there anything lower that has smoke in your body?”
“No, it’s all clear.”
I asked Lina what she felt in the lower part of her body because it often happens that the solar plexus is involved in the process. In our case, despite that long record of suffering, the “smoke” didn’t go lower than the level of the chest.
Body proportions
Having cleared the body from the “smoke” Lina felt dizzy. I asked how big she thought her head was at that moment.
Lina showed something that significantly exceeded the actual size of her head. She also said that she felt something was dark and plate-shaped on her head.
The subjective feeling that the head is bigger than it actually is can be interpreted as a sign of over strain of the nervous system. That heavy plate on the head is a sign of oxygen deprivation. It is something very typical in these situations.
I suggested the following: “Don’t you think it’s time you let these sensations achieve some balance? If you think it’s time, then observe this process.”
Liberation
Lina observed how her body was reaching balance based on peace and clarity. According to Lina’s words, her body parts became more proportional. A nice warm feeling spread all over her body.
After the first stage of therapy Lina perceived her body as having a “reddish-yellow” colour. Now she said it was becoming evenly orange. The “plate” attached to her head moved backwards, became detached and then disappeared completely. Lina’s head felt free on the inside and on the outside, it also restored its proportions and felt smaller than it had been.
Lina confessed that she was now experiencing a very strange and long forgotten feeling of freedom and peace. She wanted to keep this feeling.
Peace and strength
“The sense of even fullness is the foundation of normal existence, and this is where you can start looking for a new way to look at what happens in your life,” I said.
“I cannot believe my happiness,” Lina said.
“I understand. You need to observe this state and make sure that it is stable. It is important to learn to trust yourself again. Your body lives freely now and controls the processes. You become an adult and feel calm about it,” I said these words in a reassuring voice trying to check Lina’s reaction. “Do you know what kind of behaviour you need to live your life? How to feel safe? What actions are reasonable in this case?”
You need to guide your competence to the body in order not to overload your head! In the case of something unpleasant getting into your head, you need to let it go using the same instructions and without wasting any time. Your neck, shoulders and back should be relaxed. Stretching exercises can be of great help in your case, and naturally, you need to establish a healthy work-life balance.
Lina observed how this practical knowledge moved down to her body with a bright flow. This knowledge included our conversation and what she had heard from various doctors and people she had met in her life. This patient’s condition has improved.
“I would like to feel peaceful most of the time,” she said.
“This feeling will be with you at home and on the road, when you’re alone or when people surround you; anytime and anywhere.”
Then I suggested that Lina did more tests, to “try them on,” so to speak.
“Keep calm and walk yourself through various situations in life.”
“This is exactly what I’m doing right now,” Lina answered, keeping her eyes closed. When this process ended, she opened her eyes.
This was just one episode of our therapy.
However, I would recommend double-checking to what extent the body has restored peace of mind.
Each stage of working through the issues solves its own part of the problem until it’s totally resolved.
Figure 2
Then we had another go. Generally, there may be three or more takes within one session, and each one can begin with a drawing. It reveals if the old problem has been resolved, and a new one is often revealed instead.
Fig. 9. Fear: a round head and an oval-shaped body.
The second picture has only one inserted element. The other two elements which appeared in the first drawing (round eyes) (fig. 8-V) have become a part of much longer legs. This is a very good sign. However, I confirmed my opinion that the cause of the primary angiospasm that triggered dizziness was the problem with the spine, blocks in the neck, the back of the head and in the chest. This assumption was proven correct by the way the arms were drawn in the picture: they looked like arrows pointing at the block: more than that, they were asymmetrical which is always a sign of a physical problem. The neck is specifically depicted in the picture. The nose seems to have more connection with the back of the head rather than with the face, and that also points to respiratory difficulty related to compression in the chest.
We have checked how the arms, shoulders and spine could react to stretching. Stretching shoulder muscles, at the chest-level of the spinal cord and neck turned out to be very efficient. Lina’s head felt “cleared up”, and the headache was completely gone.
Some advice.
“Every day you become better and better at overcoming any difficulties, and you feel more confident in any situation,” I was saying these words once again while Lina was sitting with her eyes closed and observing the liberation of her body after her spinal cord had been straightened.
“You feel that you have everything you need to sleep and eat well and to enjoy your life!”
“I want to keep this feeling,” Lina said.
“It’s a natural reaction,” I replied. “You suffered a mishap when you were at an impressionable age, and back then you didn’t have the knowledge to react to it adequately. Your body didn’t know what to do and made a strain to save itself but now everything is different. Now you have grown up, you have more knowledge, and that is why you know how to maintain your balance. More than that, you know that self-regulation is a reality. If you are feeling better know, it means that you can feel like this all the time. If you have managed to restore your peace of mind right now, then it means you will be able to maintain it in the future.”
That was what we achieved in this episode of our work.
Of course, that is not all. In order to fix the result, Lina had to learn to understand her genetic habit and build, and the basics of self-regulation in case of emergency. Lina has to respect herself: she is an individual endowed with a unique life! All this work required additional time and effort. Nevertheless, the action of setting herself free from the “smoke of erroneous knowledge” and levelling out her psycho-energetic profile played an important role in restoring Lina’s health. Now she has come to a new level of maturity.
…And here’s another case from my practice. It shows that even an everyday situation can trigger a phobia.