There’s something I do which has come naturally to me. It’s often useful and sometimes limiting. Maybe you do it too, to some extent. And it’s this: reductionism. The way we tend to attempt to reduce everything into a few simple rules. No one has been more guilty of this than me. I’ve been doing it all my life. Being a Hypnotist with a keen interest in neurology, I’ve come to undertand that this type of thinking stems from our innate and never ending quest to connect bits of information together into patterns. These pattern then are the way by which we assign meaning to stuff.
Some of these patterns, (and therefore meaning) are made quickly. This is all well and good, but when this happy mess goes awry, it’s where problems can occur.
Yes, sorry hippies, sometimes our brain gets it wrong. ‘It’s good… But not that good’ like the 80’s Tennant Pilsner beer advert used to say.
But back to the brain. So when a dodgy connection is made, it can seem like the problem is there to stay. A phobia is a great example of this. It’s a dodgy connection that’s been made in the presence of an external stimulus, say a spider, where the brain, in a bid for survival builds an association of spiders with extreme threat/possible death. This is done by a really old (by evolutionary standards) and therefore primal part that overrides cognition. So even under the scrutiny of cool logic, (in the main done by the young whippersnapper part of e brain), you’ll still wig out over Incey Wincey.
In short, El Brainio goes about creating a panic response that’s triggered by the presence of a spider. Voila, arachnophobia.
The good news is that I use Hypnotherapy and NLP to create a pretty darn effective way of getting rid of the problem. If you want me to see if I can help you, give me a ring on 07903 713234 or email: info@westessexhypnotherapy.co.uk visiting West Essex Hypnotherapy to get started.
So back to my reductionism. I still do it, and it is still occasionally annoying, but I’ve learned to question the assumptions I’ve made or am making and where possible, intercept those thoughts with a few, well formulated challenges.
It’s working out pretty well so far!