
Do you ever feel as though your fears are severe and you find it hard to deal with them? Maybe your fears cause you anxiety and actually affect your daily life? It can be very hard to deal with a phobia, especially when you are unsure what you can do to stop the fear from taking over.
Although most people have certain fears, they can rationalize it and deal with the minor fears. For some, however, phobias can take control of their life and they need certain self-help strategies to help with them. I am going to discuss how you can overcome irrational phobias and fears. Firstly, let’s take a look at what actually causes these phobias to start with.
Phobias often develop in childhood however they can also develop in adults. Phobias are an intense fear of something; it can range from heights, water, driving, closed spaces etc. Anything can develop into a phobia and it is normally a fear of something that has little to no actual danger to someone.
There is no direct cause of phobias, however, there are a few factors that can come into consideration, such as:
If you know that you have an irrational fear and it is starting to affect your day to day life, it can be really hard to know how to deal with it. Once you can, you should be able to start rationalizing it and not let it take over your life.
Here are 6 tips to overcome your irrational fear.
You may be surprised, but some phobias and fears are not always obvious.
You can sometimes confuse your anxiety about something completely different, with your fears and phobias, causing more worry for yourself.
Once you can start to identify when you are feeling scared and anxious, you can pinpoint what exactly it is that you are worried about.
Likewise, if you already know what your phobia is, try and become more aware of when you are feeling anxious and stressed so that you can see what may be triggering it. This is the first step to overcoming your phobia, as you will be very aware of when and why it is happening and you can then work on trying to overcome it and not let it control you.
Having phobias and fears can be difficult to deal with and you may become frustrated and upset that it affects you and your life, however, you need to try and accept it first. Putting yourself down and becoming angry will not help matters, it will most likely make things worse.
When you can forgive and accept yourself, you can become a step closer to overcoming your phobia as you will be focusing on what to do about it, and not be focusing on how frustrated you are. Everyone has fears and some people find them harder to cope with than others, but that is OK.
Once you have accepted your fear and forgiven yourself for having a phobia, you can then start to work on how you are going to overcome it and stop focusing on your anxiety and other emotions.
Once you have identified what your fear is and accepted it, it’s time to start working on overcoming it. Although some fears may be difficult to face, it’s quite important to try and face it one step at a time.
For example, if you have an irrational fear of heights, try and face small heights throughout your week, such as walking up a big flight of stairs, go up somewhere in a lift, going on the top floor at a shopping center etc. Anything that may seem little, can still cause you worry and that is fine, but working past that and taking these steps are very important.
This should hopefully help you to rationalize your fear and start to feel a little better. It’s important to take this at your own pace, and face each fear as slowly as you like, doing what you feel comfortable doing.
Try certain practices that help you to calm down and learn what works for you. When we are feeling extremely anxious or scared it can sometimes be so overwhelming that you don’t know what to do and it can get worse from there.
Some of the things that you can try to do to calm down are: breathing exercises, going for a walk elsewhere, listen to music, meditate etc. Anything that can help you to calm down will be great for dealing with your fear.
Instead of panicking even more and having uncontrollable anxiety, you can learn to calm down and practice relaxing techniques that can help your anxiety and stress levels to decrease.
When you are facing your irrational fear or even thinking about it, you can become anxious and stressed. If you can start to focus on the present when this happens, it can really help you to calm down and overcome that fear.
If you become worried about the fear and what could happen, try and shift your attention to where you are, what you are doing, and what’s happening to you now, not what could happen.
When you stop and focus on what’s around you in that present moment, you shift your focus to something good. This makes you stop and think about what you are doing and you may be able to rationalize your thoughts and become less anxious as you become aware that you are OK.
Instead of focusing on the things, you have failed or times you have let your fear overcome you, try and focus and reflect on what you have achieved. This could be when you have actually faced your fears or even if you have just overcome the worry and anxiety of your fear; they are both things you have accomplished.
When you can reflect on what you have overcome, you can start to feel much better about yourself and realize that you have done it in the past, so you can do it once again. Try and remember times that you overcame a fear or calmed yourself down and did not let your fears take over your emotions.
Doing this is a great way to help you overcome your next irrational phobia, as you should start to believe in yourself based on what you accomplished in the past.
Irrational phobias and fears can be extremely hard to deal with when you do not know the right way to handle them. Try and practice what works for you and calms you down next time you are having trouble with your anxiety. For more help, take a look at our self-hypnosis program and overcome your phobias today.