Yes, Walt Disney had a fear that seems improbable today. Keep reading to find out what it was.
Halloween is a time that we seem to celebrate our fears. We set up scary scenes and haunted houses. We tell ghost stories and watch zombie movies. The instant thrill of fear can be very compelling, we seek the thrill. Some even become addicted to the thrill, but that is for another time and another post. So, what about those who are unhappily consumed by fear?
Fear can be productive; a warning to keep us safe if there is a hungry tiger ready to attack. This would be an appropriate signal for the fight or flight response. Fear can also be upsetting and limiting. We often fear situations that aren’t life or death. We can easily learn to overcome fear, although it may take time. When fear crosses over into phobia, it becomes life altering and that may take the help of professional using tools such as hypnosis.
Here are some simple steps to overcoming fear.
· Cultivate Awareness. It is important to recognize that fear is limiting your enjoyment of life in order to begin the process of overcoming it. It’s easy to get attached to your thoughts and feelings.
· Identify what exactly you’re afraid of. Notice the pictures in your head about the situation. What is happening in those scenes? What are you really scared of?
· Be curious, about what thoughts fuel the fear, where you feel it and how you react to it.
· Breathe in a sense of calm and imagine the fear as a cartoon. With each breath in, relax, with each exhale and imagine the fear as a cartoon.
· Have fun with it. Find or print out a picture that represents your fear. Punch, kick, or do whatever helps you feel better as you tell the fear that you are bigger and more powerful than the fear. Perhaps you can imagine beating it the way a gamer beats the “boss” in a video game.
· Imagine how you would be without the fear. What would be different about you? How would you talk, walk, hold yourself? Imagine you are free from the fear and practice being that person.
It has been reported that Walt Disney had musophobia or a fear of mice. That leads me to wonder if the creation of Mickey and Minnie and eventually the whole kingdom/world of Disney wasn’t in fact an attempt to overcome his fear. He certainly imagined his fear as a cartoon and had fun with it.
If your fear has become a phobia, you know it isn’t rational, yet nothing you try seems to help eliminate it then it might be time to seek help. Hypnosis is a great tool for changing fearful into powerful!
Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Maybe it’s time for you to release the fear and live fully!
