FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is a term that came into use in the early 2000s, about the same time social media swept through society like a violent wildfire. FOMO is intrinsically linked to social media. The ability for people to display who their friends are and what they do with them has created a two-pronged stimulus that often triggers clients’ insecurities. 
 
First, there is the desire to belong, to be like others and to be approved by them. Seeing the way friends live “the best life” on social media can often make people feel as though they’re not being accepted or approved of by their peers, and this affects self-esteem.   
 
The second way social media and FOMO affects people is by producing an obsessive need for people to constantly check on their friends, to see what others are doing. Inevitably, people also compare the lives of others with their own experiences, and often come up feeling less than adequate about them. They lose their sense of belonging, and devalue their own contributions to the world. 

Forbes Health dedicated an article to FOMO and its effect on ordinary people. Quoting a report by Technological Forecasting and Social Change, the Forbes article lists the symptoms of FOMO as:  

• obsessively checking social meeting to see what others are doing 
• experiencing low self-esteem as a result of comparing oneself to others 
• mental exhaustion from social media exposure 
• overscheduling/overachieving (in an attempt to keep up with others) 
• withdrawing from others 
• sadness, anxiety, depression 
• difficulty concentrating 
• sleep disruption 

FOMO certainly has the potential to bring about psychological disturbances that bring people into treatment. Obviously, obsessively checking social media can be seen as an addictive pattern, and issues such as depression and anxiety can be quite serious. Moreover, fears about not fitting in, or not being “good enough” can be fueled by past events, including mental, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as other traumatic experiences.

With all these issues arising in a client, what is the best way for the therapist to approach treatment?

It can be astounding to see how outwardly successful, competent, and intelligent clients can be utterly crushed by FOMO and other deleterious effects of social media. Therapists can begin by addressing symptoms, and certainly talking through the way clients see themselves, in order to bring them relief. However, this can take a great deal of time. 
 
Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy® can help you accelerate treatment with its unique approach to issues such as FOMO. With Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy®, the treatment would involve addressing the addiction to checking on social media, the feelings that have come up, and most important, the underlying reasons why the client feels the need to compare everyone else’s lives to his or her own. 

1. After a short period of hypnotic induction and resourcing, here’s how a Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy® session might go: 
2. The client is asked to go back to the most recent time the impulse to check social media could not be overridden, and/or they felt triggered by social media. 
3. The client identifies the emotion underlying that impulse, and locates where it is felt in the body. 
4. By giving the emotion a voice, the client begins to release the pent-up emotion that is fueling the unwanted behavior. 
5. After assessing the level of the emotion, the therapist may or may not increase the feeling. 
6. Age regression work begins. The client is invited to allow the subconscious mind to identify a time in the past when a same or similar feeling was present. 
7. The client describes the situation and the people present, and then expresses the emotions in this regressed state. Here is where a small child who wasn’t picked for the baseball team or cheer squad can express their sadness, anger, fear, or shame.  
8. The therapist asks the client to identify what the client made this mean about him- or herself, and what behavior(s) this belief might have inspired. The regression process is repeated, and the client goes to another point in life where the same issues arose. This helps to make the pattern clear. 
9. The client is then brought to a point where the addiction and the urge to obsessively check social media, and the hypnotherapist works to titrate the urge, or collapse the association between social media and pleasure.  
10. The client is encouraged to work with the inner children, the parts that were encountered in the regressions, to assure them that they are loved and that the adult version of the client will become the loving nurturing parent that was always needed. 
11. The old beliefs and behaviors are revisited, and the client is empowered by changing them into positive statements and affirmations. 

As you can see, Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy helps clients to clear the underlying issues that produce the tendency to fall into the trap of FOMO. This empowers them to go back to living their lives fully, with true respect for all the parts of themselves, and with tools to quell unconscious urges for undesirable behavior.

Obviously, hypnotherapy is an extremely powerful tool, and can assist therapists in the quest to provide faster relief to their clients. It might seem as though it would take a long time to learn, but there are few things further from the truth. You can learn Hypnotherapy in less than a week with the Six Day Hypnotherapy Training and Certification Program at The Wellness Institute! 

In the program, you’ll learn how to use hypnotherapy to address all sorts of mental health issues, including:  

• codependency 
• addiction 
• sexual abuse 
• mind-body connection 
• eating disorders 
• relationships 
• childhood behavior problems 

The program is taught by live teachers, fully online. You can ask questions and be involved in stimulating discussions while you learn. You’ll also experience hypnotherapy as a therapist, client, and observer in practice sessions supervised by other qualified hypnotherapists. The Six Day Hypnotherapy Training and Certification Program at The Wellness Institute will change they way you practice therapy, and also change the way you see yourself. 

Continuing courses in hypnotherapy and other similar practices are available, as well. The Wellness Institute is a community that can support you with training and a worldwide network of like-minded therapists.  
 
If you’d like to test the waters before taking the plunge into the full Six-Day course, consider the Introduction to Hypnosis course. Here, you’ll learn how to use hypnosis to help clients with performance, pain reduction, alleviation of anxiety, and more. After that weekend-long experience, you can still take the Six Day course, and receive a substantial discount on your tuition. 
 
To discuss all the details of the Six Day Hypnotherapy Training and Certification Program, Introduction to Hypnosis, and more, contact our Operations Support Manager. Don’t go and become yet another victim of FOMO!  

Enroll in the Six Day Hypnotherapy Training and Certification Program now!