Before reading this post I would encourage you to experiment with the skills and practices on this website. You may be surprised how well they work. If you have difficulty, or strong resistance to certain skills or practices you may want to come back and read this post for additional ideas. Additional thoughts will be added to this post in the future.
Blocks to Phase 1 Skills
Phase 1 skills may be difficult for some people because relaxing their body is actually a trigger in itself. If this is the case, there are several ways to work with this.
Potential solutions:
- Enlisting the help of a skilled therapist is often really valuable for untangling these kinds of blockages. Here are some pointers for finding a therapist. I am also glad to consult with you as long as I have availability.
- The most simple solution is to continue using the Phase 1 skills, but simply to make fear of relaxing the target. For example, you can think about “the possibility of relaxing”. As you consider this possibility, notice where you feel begin to feel tension in your body. Take several breaths and allow those muscles to relax. Now focus again on the thought “possibility of relaxing.” Does it feel as scary?
- Another possibility is to try a Tapping video targeting your fear of relaxing as the target. Tapping videos are available on this website such as the Brad Yates video below and you can also try the Tapping Solution app or search Youtube.
Blocks to Phase 2 and Phase 3 Growth
Phase 2 tends to involve recognizing and resolving various challenges. Often people have resistance to updating memories or old strategies for several reasons:
- Fear that the process will be too painful or scary.
- The current way of operating is at least familiar even if it is problematic. Healing, even though it sounds good is new and anything unknown can feel scary to our nervous system.
- The problem of having the current triggers and outdated strategies is smaller than deeper, often hidden perceived problems that could occur if the problem were not there in the first place.
Potential solutions:
- Educating yourself about various approaches to healing can be helpful. While many do involve some measure of discomfort, most approaches are less distressing than people imagine and the temporary discomfort leads to much greater peace in the long term. You may want to review the Approaches page for some examples.
- I suggest you read the post and watch the videos about memory reconsolidation. In the case of these blocks, the target belief to be addressed is actually the blocking fears. These can be worked with through activating them and pairing them with mismatching experiences/feeling states as explained in the post. This is easier to do with a trained therapist familiar with interventions that promote memory reconsolidation.
- You may try writing down your fear on a note card in an if then form and reading it daily without trying to challenge it. This can allow your brain time to explore and potentially update the fear. For example, “I’m afraid if I resolve x then y might happen and that would be even worse than the problems a, b, and c that I am currently dealing with.”