During the 24 Hour Hypnosis Marathon, an interesting case study came up. A woman was afraid to travel alone. I have experienced this problem more than once. That people are fine being alone in their village, or province. In her case, Friesland. But outside of that, panic strikes.
Most people either allow themselves to be held back, or they continue despite this feeling. But it's obviously not a good feeling to have with you when you actually want to enjoy your journey.
Whether it's because you want to have some fun, or because you' re taking our training, for example, and just want to join us in class.
Traveling alone increasingly popular
Traveling alone has become increasingly popular. You might think this is because loneliness is a growing problem, but a small study does not show that this is the reason people want to travel alone[1].
And there are those who just want some me-time and take a solo trip to do so. The opportunity also increases at:
- A reasonable amount of self-confidence.
- Adventurous attitude.
- Have the desire to meet new people.
- The desire to go out of the comfort zone.
- Want to test themselves for independence.
In the process, a journey can be completely mapped out according to your own preferences. After all, you don't have to take anyone into account.
The biggest problem for people who don't like traveling alone, or who want to make this easier, is safety[2].
Fear of traveling alone
The fear of traveling alone can be part of a larger fear, or other anxiety. Such as agoraphobia or agoraphobia[3]. People may report feeling "trapped" in a situation while traveling.
The system used to travel, such as the bus, train or car, can even tiggle anxiety because you have no control over it, for example. Especially in the case of public transportation.
If you travel by car, this may still bother you, such as when you drive over bridges or through tunnels. If you travel at all, you are traveling to something familiar to you.
After all, if you travel alone to what is unfamiliar to you, you will all get thoughts of what could go wrong. Even if the chances of that happening are very small. This allows you to avoid, for example, crowded places and other things you encounter when traveling.
With fear of traveling alone, it is often also the interaction with other (strange) people that causes the fear to be there (source 1).
People who have a higher chance of getting anxiety to travel are often:
- Women
- Middle-aged people
- People with anxiety disorders
- People with depression
- People with OCD
- People with PTSD
- People with bipolar disorder
People who find traveling alone more difficult often have feelings of shame that they suffer. Blame themselves and feel weak (source 1).
Driving anxiety does not always come from having been in a driving accident once, for example. There are often childhood traumas unrelated to travel that can make it difficult to travel alone.
This often also has to do with confidence. For example, if you find traveling alone difficult, it also has to do with a lack of confidence in the driving skills of other road users or even that of the bus driver.
When you travel to an unfamiliar place, you take someone with you because you trust that person to support you if you do unexpectedly find yourself in a difficult situation (source 1).
Processing trauma to make traveling alone easier
Because traveling alone often has a link to a (childhood) trauma , it is important to resolve this trauma. Was the cause very obvious, such as a car accident? Then it is also important to resolve this.
After all then you may suffer from PTSD that makes you afraid to travel.
Is it not entirely clear to you why you have a fear of traveling alone? Then something may have happened in your childhood, which unconsciously still has a lot of influence on your feelings.
In such a case, regression helps find the moment when the belief arose "it's scary to travel alone." That belief can then be repaired, so that you do dare to travel alone[4].
A variety of hypnosis techniques are available for this purpose depending on the situation[5], such as:
- Imagining as your inner child the conversation with one of your parents what it was like then.
- Mindfully letting your adult self talk to your inner child.
- Re-visualize the entire incident and change that visualization so that your subconscious realizes that the moment is over.
In addition, there are many other techniques to use to process childhood and other trauma.
Improve confidence in own skills
So the proprietary skills that may be involved are trusting yourself in finding your way around, possible self-defense, having an understanding of the language of where you are traveling (or having the tools that it is not a problem).
So taking classes in self-defense or learning the basics of a language of a country you travel to alone can already do much to improve confidence in one's own abilities.
It also helps remove limiting beliefs, such as "I can't learn well," or "I'm not strong enough anyway," or whatever, so that you are more powerful in your own right.
With this, hypnotherapy can help. Research shows that group hypnosis combined with self-hypnosis helps reduce stress and cope better with stress[6]. This can certainly come in handy during stressful situations while traveling alone.
Hypnotherapy can also be used to trust what you have learned and that you can actually apply it[7].
One way to do this is to visualize how to apply a particular skill, such as using a translation app when you need help but don't yet speak the language well enough to do so completely on your own.
You can also repeat suggestions such as:
"I am resourceful."
"I am adventurous."
"I can always find my way."
These are just examples, depending on your problems with traveling alone, a hypnotherapist may give other suggestions to repeat while in hypnosis.
Improve trust in fellow human beings
In addition to trusting yourself and being able to respond well to new situations, traveling alone can also be made easier by improving trust in your fellow man.
If you get into the car with the idea that everyone driving is an idiot who wants to hit you, that's not really relaxing. If people were really that crackpot, there would also be a lot more accidents.
In the process, more and more modern cars have sensors that intervene when there is a real danger of an accident, actually making the road much safer.
Also when it comes to safety whether you are robbed or physically attacked, by no means is every person concerned with doing something to you or stealing something from you. Of course you do take precautions such as carrying money on your body, not showing valuables and possibly pepper spray in countries where it is legal, but even then you can usually travel pretty relaxed.
Otherwise, every capital city would never get more tourist visits.
Hypnotherapy can explore why you have trouble trusting people. Perhaps the wrong people have lied to you, or something has happened to you once involving theft or violence.
In this case, it is also important to process the trauma that resulted. In many cases, the trust is not there if you have not had unconditional love. So processing how your parents treated you can already do a lot to process trust in your fellow man.
In the process, trusting yourself also helps you trust other people more[8].
In both cases, hypnotherapy helps restore this confidence. Confidence in yourself, then, involves trusting that you are not too naïve and that you can set your boundaries properly when needed.
Then when you arrive at a hotel lobby and they offer you a better (more expensive) room, you can more easily say "no" when you would normally say "yes" to this.
'Travel alone with hypnosis'
So traveling alone can certainly be made easier after some help from hypnosis. This can even be done already with group hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis. The nice thing about a self-hypnosis recording is that you can also listen to it while traveling.
For example, in your Airbnb or hotel room, or if you travel a bit by train. (Although it will work better if you are alone and in total peace).
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