Panic and Anxiety Attacks: Understanding Where They Come From and What to Do About Them
Imagine that you have three particular memories: 1) You go to a motor show and see a beautiful red Ferrari.
2) You are crossing the road and a kid in a red sports car hits your leg.
The car knocks you but you are uninjured.
3) You are up a ladder, cleaning your windows, when someone on a bicycle hits the ladder.
You wobble and drop your cloth but you hold on and descend safely.
Now, If I ask you to think of the red Ferrari memory and link it to one of the other two, which one would you go for? Most people go for the red sports car memory.
This is because they have thought of this with their conscious mind and logic says, "Two red sports cars".
However, your subconscious has no sense of logic (or time).
Your subconscious does have a sense of association of emotional reaction.
1) Of the red Ferrari, your subconscious probably thinks: "Oh, it's beautiful.
"; or "I'm envious, I want one.
"; or "I'm angry, I'll never be able to afford one.
"; or "I feel lust, just imagine what I could do on a Saturday night if I had one of those.
" 2) Of the red sports car that hit you crossing the road, your subconscious will be thinking, "I could have been injured or killed.
" 3) Of the window cleaning incident, your subconscious will be thinking, "I could have been injured or killed.
" So, straight away, your subconscious embarks on a course your conscious mind is unaware of and links the last two memories.
(Don't forget, the fear in a panic or anxiety attack is of something you feel is impending but of which you are unaware.
) Now, the kid in the sports car is long gone, as is the cyclist who knocked your ladder.
Six months later, you are on a railway platform and the train comes in.
You turn and trip over a loose shoe-lace and fall.
As you go down, you see the train coming apparently straight at you and have an over-reaction which leaves you in quite a state.
Nobody around you understands and nor do you.
Six months after that, you call me and say that you have a problem: Whenever you are driving and reach a railway crossing and the gates are down, if you are the first car in the queue, you have to cover your eyes when the train comes by or you have a panic attack.
You tell me you know where it comes from - the event in the railway station six months ago.
I invite you to come and see me and give you the following explanation.
The trip on the railway platform was a trigger for something which was caused a while ago.
You never got the chance to express your reaction to the kid in the red sports car or the person on the bicycle who both made your subconscious think, "I could have been injured or killed.
" Your subconscious saw the train coming apparently straight at you and thought, "I could be injured or killed.
" Then it thought, "Oh, this is handy, I have lots of this type of emotion stored up and unspent.
I'll let some of that out now.
" The answer to your problem is to find the memories of those first two events and take you back to them, where you can let out all the emotion they generated.
If this is done, there will be nothing excessive for your subconscious to spend next time a similar event comes along.
Until you do this, your subconscious will do all it can to prevent you entering into an event which it thinks will make you feel the same way.
This, as you know, will interrupt your enjoyment of your life (and bring depression).
2) You are crossing the road and a kid in a red sports car hits your leg.
The car knocks you but you are uninjured.
3) You are up a ladder, cleaning your windows, when someone on a bicycle hits the ladder.
You wobble and drop your cloth but you hold on and descend safely.
Now, If I ask you to think of the red Ferrari memory and link it to one of the other two, which one would you go for? Most people go for the red sports car memory.
This is because they have thought of this with their conscious mind and logic says, "Two red sports cars".
However, your subconscious has no sense of logic (or time).
Your subconscious does have a sense of association of emotional reaction.
1) Of the red Ferrari, your subconscious probably thinks: "Oh, it's beautiful.
"; or "I'm envious, I want one.
"; or "I'm angry, I'll never be able to afford one.
"; or "I feel lust, just imagine what I could do on a Saturday night if I had one of those.
" 2) Of the red sports car that hit you crossing the road, your subconscious will be thinking, "I could have been injured or killed.
" 3) Of the window cleaning incident, your subconscious will be thinking, "I could have been injured or killed.
" So, straight away, your subconscious embarks on a course your conscious mind is unaware of and links the last two memories.
(Don't forget, the fear in a panic or anxiety attack is of something you feel is impending but of which you are unaware.
) Now, the kid in the sports car is long gone, as is the cyclist who knocked your ladder.
Six months later, you are on a railway platform and the train comes in.
You turn and trip over a loose shoe-lace and fall.
As you go down, you see the train coming apparently straight at you and have an over-reaction which leaves you in quite a state.
Nobody around you understands and nor do you.
Six months after that, you call me and say that you have a problem: Whenever you are driving and reach a railway crossing and the gates are down, if you are the first car in the queue, you have to cover your eyes when the train comes by or you have a panic attack.
You tell me you know where it comes from - the event in the railway station six months ago.
I invite you to come and see me and give you the following explanation.
The trip on the railway platform was a trigger for something which was caused a while ago.
You never got the chance to express your reaction to the kid in the red sports car or the person on the bicycle who both made your subconscious think, "I could have been injured or killed.
" Your subconscious saw the train coming apparently straight at you and thought, "I could be injured or killed.
" Then it thought, "Oh, this is handy, I have lots of this type of emotion stored up and unspent.
I'll let some of that out now.
" The answer to your problem is to find the memories of those first two events and take you back to them, where you can let out all the emotion they generated.
If this is done, there will be nothing excessive for your subconscious to spend next time a similar event comes along.
Until you do this, your subconscious will do all it can to prevent you entering into an event which it thinks will make you feel the same way.
This, as you know, will interrupt your enjoyment of your life (and bring depression).