What causes anxiety and panic attacks
Here are 3 examples:
Sally 3 year old Sally is in the garden playing; her Mum looks out of the window and sees that Sally has a great big spider walking up her arm. Sally is fascinated with the spider and likes the tickly feel of the spiders’ legs walking on her skin. She had never seen such a big spider before and is not scared of it. But her mother on the other hand is absolutely terrified of spiders!
Mum rushes into the garden, screaming at Sally to get that horrible thing off her. In sheer panic she smacks Sally's arm hard to knock the spider off. She yells at Sally that she should never play with spiders, they could kill her, and she must never go near them again! Sally starts crying, not only has she been smacked for no reason apparent to her, her mother's fear and panic has frightened her badly and she feels she has done something wrong.
Eventually they both calm down and after a while Sally forgets the incident .However, the negative beliefs imprinted in that incident will remain with her for the rest of her life, buried in her subconscious. Every time she sees a spider she will become fearful and will experience EXACTLY THE SAME EMOTIONS she experienced in that original incident.
As an adult, each time Sally sees a spider she will instantly feel the same feelings she experienced in that early incident. She will always believe that she fears and loathe spiders, even though she probably does not remember the situation that created the negative beliefs in the first place.
Thomas Six year old Thomas falls down a short flight of stairs. Rather than being badly physically hurt, the shock of falling automatically triggers his fear response and he starts to cry. His father, who has witnessed the event, responds by saying “For goodness sake, stop crying Thomas, don’t be such a baby. Be a big boy. Big boys don’t cry”. Thomas feels ‘humiliated’, ‘ashamed’ and ‘hurt’ by his father’s words.
Thomas wanted his Dad to pick him up and comfort him; however, what he got was rejection. Later in life if he hurts himself again, Thomas's unconscious mind will recall the feelings from the original incident and those negative feelings surface again just as if he were six.
Every time Thomas hurts himself, he will experience the same humiliation, shame and hurt, and can even recollect what his father was wearing and his face whilst he was rejecting him.
The sad thing is Thomas's father is totally unaware of the impact his behaviour had on his son.He probably thought he was doing his best to help Thomas grow up, and learn to take hard knocks like a man. What he did was instil his own beliefs into Thomas's subconscious and Thomas spends the rest of his life trying to prove to his father what a 'man' he really is.
Maryanne Maryanne’s father used to regularly beat her and her mother, until her mother left him when Maryanne was ten. Over the years her mother has drummed it into her that ‘men cannot be trusted’, that ‘they will hurt and abuse you’ and ‘make you feel like you are nothing’.
Maryanne’s adult relationships with men have been fraught with mistrust, panic and fear. The beaten child within her cries out for love and kindness, but does not trust it when it is offered. The only thing Maryanne knows is that ‘loving a man hurts and she ‘will end up broken hearted. Her negative beliefs whisper to her that ‘all men are angry and violent’ and ‘hurt woman’ and that's the best she can expect or deserves.
So it is with all other negative experiences and incidents that happen to children. If we are told to“"Go away, stop bothering me, I'm too busy to play with you",or, "You'll get it when Dad comes home", we will take on beliefs about being unwanted, unloved and not listened to,.
If people tell us what a nuisance we are, how stupid we are, that we'll never amount to anything, WE WILL BELIEVE THEM, and carry them subconsciously into our adult lives without any awareness of how we got them.
If we are told that the world is a hostile and the only way for us to survive is to take what we can for ourselves before anyone takes it from us, WE WILL BELIEVE IT- and that will become part of our truth about ourselves, others, the world and ultimately become our destiny.
Eliminating negative beliefs helps us get off the treadmill into a life of our own, and help our children develop into the adults they are supposed rather than a person programmed with all our negative beliefs.
Copyright - Beyond Belief Personal Development - June 2008
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