Extinguish fear of abandonment with Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy

Fear is at the heart of so many of our clients’ issues. People might come to us asking for relief from anxiety, depression, eating disorders, alcoholism, or other addictions. While talk therapy can do a lot to relieve some of their symptoms, there is a more powerful way to get to the source of their underlying difficulties, and assist them toward living a fear-free life.

Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy gives clients the freedom to explore past experiences that may have created faulty beliefs about themselves, and in turn, unconsciously inspire unwanted behaviors. There are many fears and shame-based beliefs that can result from traumatic events in the past, but here we will focus on one that is shared by almost every human being: fear of abandonment.

Fear of being alone with ourselves

According to The Wellness Institute’s founder, Diane Zimberoff, the fear of being alone with oneself, without a source of support or companionship, is responsible for creating many psychological, spiritual, and mental health challenges. In an attempt to do everything possible to avoid being left “alone,” people will create dysfunctional relationships with food, drugs, work, and most likely, inappropriate partners. 

Talk therapy can be used to help the client unravel the patterns of their unwanted behavior, and possibly get to the fear of being left alone, but what happens after that? Where does this fear of abandonment originate? How far back does it go? How can it be overcome, and ultimately, healed?

Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy offers a fast track that speeds up the slow process of finding answers to all these questions. With the hypnotherapist’s encouragement, the client will guide him- or herself back to the source of the pain of being left alone. And often, these memories come from a time before the client had words with which they could be expressed.

The surprising source of fear of abandonment

Diane Zimberoff has said, “The fear of abandonment (creates situations) that are like a tree trying to grow tall and healthy, but with decayed roots that don’t really support the full structure.” Without the support of a healthy lack of fear of being alone, people often go through life not knowing why it is that the older they get, the less secure they feel. The “tree” comes tumbling down, as they succumb to addictions, anxiety, and/or depression.

From where does fear of abandonment come? It can develop from the many possibilities of a child being left feeling alone and without support, but in many cases, it goes back even further...to the prenatal and birth experiences.

Especially in western cultures, babies are deprived of the experience nature intended for them to experience just after birth. In a natural setting, the baby is placed on the mother’s stomach, and then makes his or her way to the breast for that first feeding outside the womb. In most hospitals, especially when the mother is given anesthesia, babies are taken from the mother almost immediately to be weighed, measured, and otherwise evaluated. 

This results in a mutual disconnection between mother and child, where both are deprived of the loving, bonding experience they should have at this precious time. The practice of anesthetizing mothers during childbirth was prevalent until at least the 1980s, and still takes place in many cases today. And to be sure, the poking and prodding that occurs just after birth is still firmly in place within most hospital protocols.

In all these instances, the baby’s abrupt separation from the mother creates a foundational experience of separation anxiety. The baby feels abandoned, alone, and invaded, on the very first day of life outside the womb! You can learn more about this and much more about existential issues, birth trauma, and the way hypnotherapy works in the book by Diane Zimberoff: Longing for Belonging.

Healing fear of abandonment and its effects on the human spirit with Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy

Later in life, people will tend to do everything they can to avoid confronting loneliness and the terror of being abandoned. The need for distraction from this feeling leads to the act of “self-soothing,” with food, drugs, alcohol, shopping, sex, gambling, internet addiction, and myriad other “thrills” that are more appealing than being left alone.

When they come for therapy, the first thing they (and the therapist) want to do is help them to gain greater control over their impulses. There are different ways of approaching this issue, but the course Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy takes will expedite the process, by getting to and understanding the source of the underlying fear, and then helping the client to heal the faulty beliefs that were installed at the point of the traumatic event(s).

Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy works by allowing the client to relax to a point where the flow of communication between the unconscious and conscious parts of the mind is fluid and free. Once there, the client is invited to revisit the most recent time the fear or craving arose. Then, after describing the situation, the client identifies the emotion they are feeling, and expresses it.

After that, the therapist assists the client to regress in time, back to the past when a same or similar feeling came up and made them want to indulge in unwanted behaviors, from addiction to anxiety. Once the past experience is identified, the feelings associated with it are expressed in the voice of that person at the age to which s/he regressed, and the client sees the old conclusion that was made at that time, and perceives how that conclusion provoked old and unwanted behavior.

A second regression repeats this process, demonstrating to the client how the pattern had been established, and how it affects them today. Often, the regression will go back to a time such as the moments just after birth, or the birth process itself, when the person felt extremely vulnerable, confused, and very alone.

After the client fully expresses the emotions and releases them, the healing portion of the session begins. This gives the opportunity for the client to do the following:

• Give real love to those younger parts of the self that needed soothing.
  
  
• Recover lost parts of the spirit that may have split off at the time of the trauma.
  
  
• Collapse the connections between urges and actions that take place with addiction
  
  
• Titrate the underlying fear or anxiety by learning to manage feelings with thought
  
  
• Form new, healthy conclusions that reframe the old ones that were carried from the traumatic event(s)
  
  
• Cultivate and accept the unconditional love of the universe
  
  

Obviously, Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy offers a fast track to healing fear of abandonment and many other underlying causes of the presenting symptoms of your clients and patients. Wouldn’t you like to have this powerful tool at your disposal?

Learn Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy in just six days

Yes, you read that correctly! The Wellness Institute offers a six-day training and certification program that will prepare you to use this powerful modality with your clients. It’s offered totally online by our highly trained teachers, making your training as safe as it will be convenient. Don’t wait. Enroll now, as classes are filling up quickly.

For six-day graduates, the journey continues with the Advanced Internship. This in-depth series of workshops hones your skills and offers you opportunities to enhance your own inner healing. New Internships are enrolling now. Act fast!

PTI Leadership graduates are trained and authorized to offer Personal Transformation Intensive classes to their clients, bringing the healing energies of Wellness Institute practices to the public.

All our teachers, and others who wish to teach or simply to immerse themselves in the magical work of Carl Jung, are invited to be a part of the Mentors Program. This program is available to students who have completed the Six-Day, Advanced Internship, and PTIL Training.

As you can see, the healing journey with The Wellness Institute can take you deeper and deeper into your own process of transformation. Start now with the Six-Day, or if you’re already a graduate, it’s time to take the next step toward greater healing at The Wellness Institute.