< PreviousFEARS & PHOBIASBy Stephanie Dalfonzo I knew I'd made a mistake. Guess what? FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I did not get upset, just kept my cool. I cannot believe how much control I had”. This from a sweet 82-year-old nana, who had suffered with fear and anxiety her entire life, manifesting with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. What a courageous example, to all of us, that at 82 she was willing to get vulnerable, face her fears and live the rest of her life in freedom and joy. OVERCOMINGs is the case with most of my clients with fears or phobias, her issues were rooted in early childhood. ATalking about the issue, learning why this behavior happened only keeps us stuck. Albert Einstein said, “A problem cannot be solved by the same level of consciousness that created it.” Unlike traditional therapy, my work delves into the subconscious mind, where we can easily find the root of the fear and gently heal it. One of the techniques I use to bypass the conscious mind is hypnosis. Over the years, I’ve helped thousands of clients with everything from the fear of flying to a fear of bees, highway driving, dogs, thunder and more. Trying to talk ourselves out of it doesn’t work (and if you suffer with fear, you know that!) Fear doesn’t just exist in one area of our lives – it permeates every aspect of our being! I once worked with a 14-year-old girl who had a fear of dogs. Of course, her mother thought it was from a time when a dog jumped at her. Even though we were working on her fear of dogs, after her first session, she was able to do a gymnastics flip that she had never been able to do before. After our second session, she got a spot on the varsity gymnastic team as a freshman! Fand when her mother came to pick her up, she burst into tears as she saw her daughter sitting on the couch petting my sweet “therapy dog” Maggie. We literally have changed the trajectory of this girls life! She now knows that she can overcome anything! The root of this girl’s fear had nothing to do with dogs at all! It was rooted to stage fright at 3-years-old in her first dance recital. Dogs as Emotional Support Animals have become very common in America, and while they do provide emotional support, the fear will still remain unless you allow yourself to get vulnerable and get to the root of the problem. It is almost impossible to do that on your own. For most of us, it is incredibly difficult to bypass our conscious mind and access our subconscious mind to find the root cause of an issue. That’s why it’s so important to find the right practitioner to help you. Fears are so common. Harrison Ford and Warren Buffet have both said they share the #1 fear – fear of public speaking. Whoopi Goldberg, Cher and Jennifer Anniston have admitted they have a fear of flying. or her third session, she came to my home Sarah came to me at age 19. She flat out refused to go on a family vacation – she was not going to get on an airplane! Her mother said she knew exactly when her fear of flying started. I smiled and said "Maybe, maybe not." As with most of my clients who consciously think they know the root cause, it was not the case with Sarah. When we uncovered the actual root cause, we were able to heal it and Sarah and her family enjoyed a lovely vacation. Five years later, Sarah celebrated her freedom by skydiving and co- piloting an airplane! She now has a robust social media following, has traveled to all seven continents and has her own business The Five Foot Traveler! What an incredible inspiration to anyone who has allowed fear to shrink their world. What is your fear costing you? What would Sarah’s life be like today if she hadn’t gotten vulnerable and allowed herself to overcome her crippling fear? WHealing doesn’t have to take a long time and healing doesn’t have to hurt. Exposure therapy, where you are repeatedly exposed to the very thing you are afraid of, is hurtful, in my opinion. I had an experience years ago when a therapist, genuinely trying to help me, was actually re-traumatizing me. It informs my practice of gentle healing. When you’re ready to get your freedom back, get a referral from a friend and find the right practitioner, get vulnerable and say: hether it’s fear of public speaking, fear of flying, or fear of elevators and closed spaces, you CAN break free! Goodbye Anxiety, Hello Freedom! By Jo Hodson he idea of life being a celebration of the 'journey' and not the 'destination' is not a particularly new concept.I see it bounced around in quotes on Pinterest and on the web in various forms, but it can so easily be overused and it’s meaning lost and diluted. I really love Brene Brown’s spin on things… T“It’s not about winning, it’s not about losing, it’s about showing up and being seen.”EMBRACING VULNERABILITYSSometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking we are stepping into our power and living up to our potential by making plans, thinking about what we will do, reading all the books, speaking the speak.... BUT 'showing up' is in the doing. It's the stepping out into real life and putting those thoughts into actions. It's entering a new unknown territory. It’s the risk taking and the potential for failure. It takes us out of hiding- whether that be physical or mental, there is no going back once that step has been taken. howing up is an incredibly powerful concept.is the real crux of embracing our vulnerability. SHOWING UPis saying 'yes' to life. SHOWING UPis surrendering and trusting the process. SAYING ‘YES’ is deeply entwined with embracing vulnerability. TRUSTING THEPROCESS as if it’s a structure or thing that we need to gain more of over time, but in that building there also seems to be something deeply powerful and necessary about letting go. That ‘letting go’ brings us out of our heads and down into our hearts. That ‘letting go’ allows us to stop thinking, to stop worrying that someone won’t catch us if we fall. It allows us to relax a part of our minds so that we can focus on what’s right in front of us and stop concerning ourselves what’s going on when we are not there. Trust is not one way but many ways of being. Trust is your relationship to the unknown, it’s a slow and steady practice of learning about the capacity of the world. Some time ago I was at home just getting settled to go to bed when a question popped into my head and wouldn’t leave me alone. We talk about trust as something we ‘build’ “What does being brave mean to me, and how can I show up ‘bravely’ in my life?” Ibut as it did I also had the soundtrack ‘Brave’ by Sara Barielles playing through my mind… have no idea whatsoever why that question popped into my head, “Say what you wanna say And let the words fall out Honestly, I wanna see you be brave” When we are younger our parents may say ‘be brave’ when we fall over and scrape a knee, to help try and stop our tears. Being brave in the face of pain is a very traditional association, but I think it goes much deeper than this in how we show up in the worldas we get older and more of societies expectations bear down upon us. Is bravery a direct correlation to the level of unknown and uncontrollable outcomes and moving forward regardless? For me, bravery is about stepping beyond your personal comfort zone… that’s where the fear factor and the unknown both lie. Next >