Fears and Phobias can be Learnt, and therefore, Unlearnt!

Exploring The Three Principles with Sarie Taylor

How often have you heard someone has a phobia? Its almost like its accepted that we will all have at least one phobia, and we usually do.

I used to have a terrible fear of flying (I don’t like flying much now, but I don’t fear it) and I know there are so many common fears that we hear about every day, spiders being one of them.

The other day me and my two daughters (one 16 and one 1) were all in the bathroom and my teen suddenly says ‘Oh my god mum there’s a huge spider in the bath!’ I automatically reacted with a discomfort and instantly wanted to get away from it.

I then noticed my teens reaction was to say ‘move the baby quick’ and then when I looked at Aria leaning over the bath, she was definitely not scared, she looked excited and wanted to play with the spider.

In that moment I remembered, fears are learnt.

Aria has no thoughts at all about that spider right now, she is simply curious and loving like she is with everyone and everything at the moment. I decided in that moment to put my thoughts aside and get present.

I picked up Aria and popped her in the bath as she was trying to climb in, and she had so much fun trying to catch the spider.

For now we have averted the beginning of a fear of spiders for Aria, which could have very quickly gone the opposite way in a matter of seconds, based on our words and responses.

The funny thing was we walked into the lounge after a few minutes and CBeebies children’s programme was on and they were talking about a spider, but the language was all about the scary spider!

It just made me laugh and again confirmed we create so many beliefs based on layers of thoughts that we have, that are also confirmed by others over time, and before you know it, we have a fear and maybe even a phobia.

Spiders don’t not cause phobias we just have a lot of thoughts about spiders that create the feeling of fear.

If you are reading this now share what phobias you have and whether you know this is something that can be changed?

Sep 21, 2023 07:00am

By sarie taylor

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2 min read

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Are we overcomplicating mental health?

The continuous spiral of talking about mental illness and neglecting to discuss mental health that’s within us all!

Finding herself in a mental hospital for a month aged 22, her worst fears of going crazy had come true! Sarie truly believed she was broken for many years, and now sees that this was in part due to massively over complicating what it meant be a human being. After a long period of exploring and training as a psychotherapist, still burning out every 18 months for another ten years, Sarie finally found the answer, and now shares the surprising simplicity of it all to help others get the same relief.

Sarie has trained as a transactional analysis psychotherapist, as well as working and training in many other therapeutic disciplines, such as NLP, CBT, DBT and hypnotherapy. Sarie is also an author, celebrity coach and therapist, working with thousands of people a year, of all ages, all over the world. Her main aim is to help them really see the simplicity and beauty behind human nature, getting out of their heads and into their lives, being able to see that the inside out nature of life really is a gift. This removes limitations and stories they may hold about themselves, and as a result finding an ease and contentment in life they often never knew was possible.