Im Doing Self-Hypnosis for Spider Phobia
There are no pictures of 8 legged beasts in the post!
Spiders can swim!?
Seriously I did not know they could swim, but they can, this is true. It is honest (as I always am) And there is a moral to this story so read on.
Very recently, last week in fact, I had had the day with my children, I was feeling pretty tired & it was time for bed. Happily chatting away to hubby I went to brush my teeth, as you do. I turned around and right there, IN the toilet bowl was a spider. An absolutely massive spider, swimming! Going round in circles like a synchronised swimmer with no elegance.
Now, usually if there is a spider in the house I can quite calmly evict it from the building and keep my cool. This however was not how I reacted. Scaredy Cat doesnt quite do it.
This was not something I had ever anticipated. When I work with phobias now, after removing the initial fear I can programme in ways of coping or desired behaviours to have up your sleeve in the event of another meeting with that phobia. This is so you are covered if and when you re encounter a problem and you feel calm and confident. Sounds good huh? However this was one thing that in my world was never a possibility. So I never programmed in a way to deal with a spider of this magnitude swimming in my toilet.
I am not kidding the spiders here in Hampshire are way bigger than you see in Reading. This bad boy was touching the sides! YUCK. Anyway this is what happened:
So I turn around and see this thing. “Oh my F&%*ing God there’s a spider !it’s in the water!!!” I felt the old behaviours start to come back. I could see my old anxiety begin to rear its ugly head. Could feel my eyes glazing. I legged it out of the bathroom and shouted for him in doors, (Completely unnecessary but I think he liked getting rescue me!) I needed a moment to think. I was literally having a conversation with my old emotional self and my newer logical self. I knew everything I should or could do, but could not actually make it happen. I was not prepared to scoop that thing out and save it. For all I know it could have bitten me and then I’ll wake up as spider-woman 2.0 (obviously better because I’m a girl ?)
I had spent some of my training as a hypnotherapist trying to get my thing with spiders sorted. It was the one thing I found hard to beat. But the more I learned the less and less real it became and as such I never spent any time on myself in self-hypnosis once I had honed my technique. I just got on with things, and was happily getting rid of spiders as required. Needless to say I’ll be doing some self-hypnosis now. Self-Hypnosis is a really simple process, and will conquer something I had forgotten about.
Once hubby had removed offending article things weren’t so bad. I did have questions though. So if the spider community wish to shed any light on your methods I would be grateful. Where did you come from? Why are you here? How the F did you get in? WHY are you here? I filled in my gratitude diary (I practice what I preach. This is something some clients do as part of homework, not phobia related!) My 3 things were:
- I’m so grateful I had the light on.
- I’m so grateful I didn’t sit down.
- I’m so grateful I had the light on.
Note to Spiders, I speak on behalf of mankind here, stay out of rooms beginning with B. No spiders in the Bedroom and no spiders in the Bathroom. NO. Just No. It is unacceptable to trespass where human nakedness is involved. All of us could manage quite well I’m sure if you would abide by those rules.
So my moral of the story is: A.
It’s ok to ask for help sometimes.
You can’t be strong all of the time no matter what you are dealing with, big or small. It’s so easy to beat yourself up.
and B.
You are not a failure
Just because something happened and you reacted in an unexpected way as a one off doesn’t mean your e a failure. Isn’t this how and why we learn?
Hence, I’m going to chuck in “spider in the toilet” programming now too as standard.
Now. who knows where I can go collecting conkers? Just in case…,