Overcoming fear of ghosts

Ghosts do not exist and yet you can be very afraid of them. Fear of ghosts is something that adolescents and some adults can suffer from. The fear of ghosts can be incredibly annoying because this fear can cause a nuisance especially at night. This can cause insomnia and also all kinds of concentration problems.

To overcome fear of ghosts, there are a number of things you can do.

Fear of Ghosts

The fear of ghosts or other paranormal things is something that can affect not only children, but adults as well. The cause of this fear often varies from person to person, but there will be recognizable situations or similarities in the origins of the fear of ghosts and other paranormal events.

Fear of ghosts in children

Fear of ghosts is something that can develop in childhood, for example, I know someone who suffered from it for years during her adolescence.

It all started at grade 6 school camp. It was a small school so groups 6,7 and 8 went to school camp together. Games were played there, such as summoning spirits with a silver chain.

That the necklace moved and the other ghost stories of one's mother being followed by a ghost were all things that impressed her tremendously.

The mother they were talking about had apparently seen in the mirror that her front tooth suddenly became super long. Fearing ghosts, she couldn't look in the mirror for months after that.

She was also never afraid of the dark, but suddenly the light in the hallway had to be left on at night.

Over time, the anxiety lessened, as nothing happened when she did look in the mirror once, nor did furniture suddenly move around the room.

In addition, the person with that necklace could also very secretly make the necklace move, of course, that realization came more and more over the years as well.

Fear of ghosts in adults

As can be seen, children's fear of ghosts can disappear because too few things happen that prove ghosts exist. This may be because television programs about ghosts are often shown later in the evening and thus cannot be seen by children.

As a result, the belief that spirits exist is not fueled.

Research shows that people who believe in spirits and psychic powers often reinforce this belief by finding evidence. Meanwhile, this can easily be found via the Internet and there are late night television programs of entire teams searching for ghosts in old prisons or something similar.

In those programs, it even looks like you can scientifically prove that spirits exist.

So these types of programs can reinforce belief in spirits, and if you are then also afraid of spirits, this can also reinforce the fear as it seems more and more justified.

Just as programs about plane crashes can reinforce or even induce fear of flying , television programs about ghosts can reinforce or induce fear of ghosts.

Symptoms of fear of ghosts

At a time of anxiety, you may experience the following symptoms:

• Accelerated Heart Rate
• Panic Attack
• Sweat
• Vibrate
• Dizziness
• The feeling that something very bad is about to happen

Overcoming fear of ghosts: the steps

To solve problems, it is often important to get to the root cause. By identifying the cause of the anxiety, you can also do more to eliminate the problem. In addition, confronting the fear is often also a good way to reduce the fear, but in the case of the fear of ghosts this is very difficult.

Find the cause

When did your fear of ghosts start? Is it something from your childhood? Did you ever experience something you couldn't explain? Or did you just watch too many scary movies or those television shows where people try to communicate with ghosts?

Normally, you can use regression therapy to retrieve such a memory, but with the fear of ghosts, this can actually cause you to become extra convinced that ghosts exist. Therefore, try to find out for yourself where your fear of ghosts started.

Uncover your beliefs

If you can't figure out the cause, you can also check your beliefs . This is something that is done with techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy. Research shows that if these techniques are applied while you are under hypnosis the techniques help faster and as a result you get rid of your anxiety faster as well.

Figuring out beliefs about spirits can be done, for example, by using questioning with the why question. If you ask yourself a number of times with why, you often get to the core of your belief.

Knowing what beliefs you have about spirits can also help you determine whether the beliefs make sense or weaken them by making other beliefs stronger.

Making other beliefs stronger can be done by using hypnotic suggestions, such as:

A mind can't kill me.

At best, a mind can scare me.

A mind does not have to be an evil mind.

Ghosts don't exist.

These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions that can reduce fear of ghosts. Fears are often very personal, and if these suggestions do not help for you, a hypnotherapist can help you with suggestions that apply to your beliefs and fear of ghosts.

Ask yourself a few questions

In addition to the why question about figuring out your beliefs, you can also ask yourself other questions about how justified your fear of ghosts actually is. Therefore, ask yourself the following questions and you will see that the answers have a calming effect.

• What is the worst that can happen if I indeed encounter a spirit?
• How do I make fear less believable?
• In what ways will other people benefit if I overcome this fear?

Don't look for proof that spirits exist

One thing you can do to make fear less believable is to stop looking for evidence that ghosts exist. This means that you stop watching videos on YouTube about the existence of ghosts and you also stop watching those programs on television in which there is communication with ghosts.

By stopping looking for evidence, your fear is no longer fed and your daily activities can distract you from the fear of ghosts. As a result, the fear can gradually stop just as it can go away on its own in children over time.

Instantly stop fear of ghosts

Sometimes you suddenly have acute fear of ghosts. For example, it is late at night and you are home alone when the fear sets in. Chances are you then have all kinds of fear thoughts that only make you more anxious. If you then also have the physical symptoms of anxiety this can also exacerbate the anxiety in itself.

Move

If you are alone, it is best to go out and do something, such as dancing, painting or even exercising. By doing something physical, you distract your thoughts so that your anxiety thoughts no longer dominate.

Plus, you then produce a variety of positive chemicals that make you feel happier and exercise helps you minimize the physical response to anxiety.

Anchor Yourself

If you are right with others and suddenly suffer from fear of ghosts, you can also use the anchor technique.

You also often use this technique subconsciously when your fear is triggered correctly. Every time something significant happens in your life whether it is a good or bad moment, that event is linked to an emotion in your nervous system. This triggers fear, for example, in similar situations where a fear has arisen.

In positive situations, this can be recognized by, for example, "our song. When you fell in love with your partner, there was probably 1 song that was very popular. Hearing this song can cause all your feelings of love to suddenly return.

By consciously anchoring, you can also use this very technique to remove fear by using precisely your positive anchor. You can "install" this one in the following way.

First, decide what positive state you want to use as a positive anchor, such as the feeling when you have accomplished something, the feeling just before you unwrap a gift, the feeling when you are completely relaxed when you are sunbathing, as long as it is a positive feeling.

Choose a unique part of your body that you want to anchor this positive part to. Anchoring the emotion is done by coming up with a stimulus, such as squeezing the hand you are not writing with. This is easy to do in front of other people and doesn't immediately look weird. Or, on the contrary, you can touch a birthmark.

To anchor it, you first visualize the moment with those positive feelings. Once you have maximized this positive feeling you perform the stimulus for 5 to 10 seconds. Like squeezing your hand or touching your mole.

Afterwards, you'll have your feelings normalized again.

You then repeat the visualization and perform the stimulus.

Do this 10 times. Then you can apply this technique to reduce your anxiety if it suddenly bothers you in public.

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Sources:

http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Abstract/1999/03000/The_Role_of_Fear_in_Delusions_of_the_Paranormal.5.aspx

http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/ghost-fear/how-to-overcome/