Julies fear of heights! 

Fear of heights is common for a lot of people and in a way practical too. I mean human beings have got no wings, so to dealing with heights with common sense is a good thing.  

For some of us it turns out to be more than common sense. I remember a friend of mine who was really afraid of heights. Once he told about a walk along a trail in the mountains where the precipice “tried to take him down” he told.  

Technically this has to do with how we construct our internal pictures and the feelings coming from that. However this explanation does not really help when we are upon the edge of a chasm and feel that we might as well give in and go down to get it over – it is going to happen anyway.  

I remember Julie – a client who made an appointment because of fear of heights. Her husband has the habit to visit the view deck at the top of skyscrapers and wanted her to join him. This always released her fear of heights. So she came to me to get rid of that fear. She told me, that whenever she entered a lift to go up to the view deck she could hardly breathe and she felt as if the heart stopped beating. She really wanted to get rid of that reaction.  

There is a lot of ways to deal with fear, so I started by making an interview about the internal pictures she made by going up in the lift. She told me, that she actually made a picture that the whole building would collapse and everyone go down and die. She knew that this was totally irrational and nevertheless she got the feeling every time.  

As a coach you can work dissociated with the film or you can work associated with the experience.  
In this case I chose the last.  

I asked Julie to imagine herself step into the lift and take off for the view deck – and tell me where in the body she felt the fear. The emotional reaction came immediately in the stomach and in the throat – strongest in the stomach. It was easy to see the reaction as a change of colour in the face and a slight trembling in the body.  

I asked her to have her awareness move into the feeling of fear and just keep on moving deeper and deeper into the middle of the fear and tell me what she experienced here. The answer was peace! Then I guided her into the peace – and again deeper and deeper into the middle of the peace. The colour in the face changed again and she started to breath normally. I asked her to tell me when experienced to be in the middle of the peace and when she confirmed I used some hypnotic patterns to have the peace grow and expand. Have it integrate into each and every cell in the body. Have this peace anchored together with the experience to be at the view deck and watching the view standing next to her husband. I watched her reaction and her body went into a total state of relaxation.    

I tested it a few times by asking her to imagine going up to the deck in different skyscrapers in which she has been before. Each time we had a positive response.  

The whole thing lasted around an hour and I have later by e-mail got confirmation from her that she and her husband often enjoy the view from skyscrapers together. (Julies name has been changed)