Feel The Fear

Your Fear Response

You come to me desperate,
desperate for help,
help to eradicate your fear,
You speak, breathless,
tears sting
'put me to sleep' you say,
'make this fear stop,
make it go away'

But it’s a fallacy,
this notion
of magic,
of hypnotic sleep,
of losing control

You won’t...
there is nothing to fear

I will help you
to rewind your phobia,
I'll help you
to re-frame your future,
perfect,
I will guide you in hypnotic trance
but first you must listen,
first,
you must understand

Your Hippocampus
is like a library,
a library of templates
on overcrowded shelves,
and those templates,
tell tales
of fear
and phobia
Arachnaphobia...
Bacteriophobia...
Cacophobia...
A go-to,
historical record
an hysteria-fuelled record
of your
panic attack

Previous encounters
stuck
in emotional angst,
Memories
left unprocessed
in REM sleep.
With a bucket, full,
dreams metaphorical or otherwise,
are unable
to morph emotion
into narrative control.

Your Hypothalamus,
shocked
into action,
A fear response
an adrenaline surge
sweats, shakes and stomach saults,
your heart a xylophone
against your ribs,
A second
split with a decision
to fight or to flee,
Neither, always necessary
but your primitive brain
steps up to protect
you.
Sounds familiar?

Your phobia
starts with a thought,
a thought you can control,
Think...
intellectually
You know, not everyone has Vestiphobia
If we did,
we'd all be naked.
So change your perspective
choose your thoughts with care,
choose
with knowledge of their power,
the power to hold you back
or to set you free

and with that freedom,
your library is emptied
your bucket of stress,
is less,
Your emotional response
becomes a narrative
A story to tell,
perhaps you'll laugh
perhaps you'll cry
perhaps you'll dance

but you’ll definitely
enjoy
being fearless