Making traveling alone easier with hypnosis

During the 24-hour hypnosis marathon, an interesting case came up. A woman was afraid to travel alone. I’ve encountered this problem before: people are perfectly fine being alone in their village or province—in her case, Friesland—but once they venture beyond that, panic sets in.

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 do something fun, or because, for example, you ’re taking our course and simply want to attend our classes.

Traveling alone increasingly popular

Solo travel has become increasingly popular. You might think this is because loneliness is a growing problem, but a small study shows that this is not the reason why people want to travel alone[1].

And there are people who simply want some “me-time ” and take a solo trip for that reason. The likelihood also increases when:

1. A reasonable amount of self-confidence.
2. Adventurous attitude.
3. Have the desire to meet new people.
4. The desire to step out of one’s comfort zone.
5. Wanting to test oneself on 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 may be part of a larger anxiety disorder or another type of anxiety, such as agoraphobia or fear of open spaces[3]. People may report feeling “trapped” in a situation while traveling.

The mode of transportation—such as a bus, train, or car—can even trigger anxiety, because, for example, you have no control over it. This is especially true when it comes to public transportation.

If you’re traveling by car, you may still experience this, for example, when driving over bridges or through tunnels. When you travel, you’re heading toward 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:

1. Women
2. Middle-aged people
3. People with an anxiety disorder
4. People with depression
5. People with OCD
6. People with PTSD
7. People with bipolar disorder

People who find traveling alone more difficult often feel ashamed that it bothers them. They 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 has to do with trust as well. If you find traveling alone difficult, for example, this may also stem from a lack of trust in the driving skills of other road users or even 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

Since traveling alone is often linked to (childhood) trauma, it’s important to resolve this trauma. Was the cause very clear, such as a car accident? Then it’s also important to resolve that.

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 you identify the moment when the belief that “traveling alone is scary” first arose. That belief can then be corrected, allowing you to feel confident enough to travel alone[4].

A variety of hypnosis techniques are available for this purpose depending on the situation[5], such as:

• In your mind, imagine your inner child having a conversation with one of your parents about what they were like back 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 eliminate limiting beliefs—such as “I’m not a good learner,” “I’m not strong enough anyway,” or whatever else—so you can stand more confidently in your own skin.

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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