How to Overcome Fear of Spiders and Mice
How to Overcome Fear of Spiders and Mice
Video Transcript:
So you may or may not know, but I have had a lifelong fear of mice. I know it's not logical. Believe me. I've tried for years and years to try to get rid of that fear by just telling myself they're not harmful. You know, it's just a little mouse, they're more afraid of you than I'm afraid of them, etc. Like it just didn't work.
How to Overcome Fear of Spiders and Mice
Finally, I found something that actually worked and I can hardly even believe it myself, which is why I wanted to make sure to create a blog because I just have to share this information with you.
I know so many people with fears of spiders and all sorts of things, and if it could get rid of my fear of mice, I really think there's a good chance that it could help you as well. And I only had one session of doing what I'm going to share with you in this video. So I just want to give some background story to help you realize how strong this fear of mice was.
For me, whenever I saw a mouse, I would just freak out and jump on the chair, on the table, on the bed, like whatever was closest. And I could just feel my nervous system shaking. I would like a shake. I was living in Boston for a year while I was doing my dietetic internship at Brigham and Women's hospital. We were in a newly renovated apartment, but the mice still got in.
They, Oh my gosh, they can just get under and in like all sorts of cracks. It's wild. And so I couldn't sleep. And I was put on sleep medications and then I was drowsy in the morning. I was trying to do this intensive dietetic internship. It was just a recipe for disaster.
So in this whole scheme of overall holistic health, fears can negatively impact overall holistic health in these ways. And I know a lot of people who have fears of spiders and all sorts of other things. And finally what happened to where I was at the point? I'm like, I have to figure out something that actually works for this is our cat, Khaimah caught her first mouse she's like six or seven.
My friend found her as a stray in his backyard as a kitten. And long story short, he invited me over to just, see her and hang out with her and play with her. And I came home with a new cat. And so Khaimah was in the basement and she caught her first mouse and she comes up to the apartment. And again, she's like six, seven years old at this point. So I was like, Oh, Khaimah come up here and hang out. And I looked down and she has this like a mouse in her mouth, like wiggly. I of course like screamed and freaked out and someone would have thought there was something terrible that had happened. I jumped on the couch and just like was shaking. And she freaked out because she's like, thought she was bringing me a gift, like little, did she know, like that's not my ideal type of gifts.
And so she drops the mouse it runs and hides under our fridge for I don't know how long. I had to wear socks for days. I would actually like to stand on a chair to go around the fridge. I would stand on a chair when I'm opening the fridge for days. So hopefully it gives you a sense of how strong this fear was for me. And then I ended up reaching out to local practitioner groups. So there's functional medicine, practitioners, holistic, whatever name you want to give it. Conventional too, it's just open-mindedness to complementary therapies. Right?
And so I reached out to their complementary to see if anybody knew of any sort of therapy practitioner that can actually get to the root of this because I knew there was something in my subconscious, that was the issue, but I just did not know how to fix it.
So the lead or the organizer, or the guy who created this group, he's a doctor, is an MD. He actually was super sweet and private message me the name of a local practitioner that he said, I sent when he was retired now, a lot of clients here and the results that they got are just incredible even after like one session. So I think it's worth a shot. And certainly, if someone says that they think that they can teach me what's needed after one session that it'll work. I mean what's the risk, right? It’s kind of not a get-rich scheme or anything like that. So I did it and I'm going to share that in this blog, but let's do our little intro first.
I'm Ashley Oswald, registered dietitian and founder of Oswald Digestive Clinic, where we help people improve and eliminate bothersome gut issues like gas, bloat, diarrhea, and, or constipation.
You can work with us in one of two ways. You can schedule an appointment with us and we are now accepting insurance, or you can start by downloading our FREE GUIDE: 5 ways to improve gut health.
So without further ado, let's dive right in and talk about the technique I use to get rid of my lifelong fear of mice.
Tapping Technique to get rid of the fear of mice and spiders
All right. So here's what I did. It's the technique called tapping. And if you hadn't told me this beforehand, that it would actually work, I totally wouldn't have believed you. So I worked with a woman named Valerie, she would help me visualize and get into the emotion and the situation of being around mice, like everything from just picturing a mouse crawling on the floor to then ramping up more extreme episodes to where I would probably freak out more right to where I was like, laying down, all these mice are running on me, and I would have this like body reaction to that.
And then we would do the tapping, which is basically these meridians. Also, like acupuncture is similar to that and she can go through it more on your session, but it's that, and you just keep doing that.
This is the biggest one for fear she taught me and she would have me just going through doing this while I was visualizing getting into the emotion of that situation. And after a few minutes, my visualization of it and my body's reaction would calm down.
So then we would go onto the next link to where we even like pulled up a YouTube video where mice are running around and I'd just be tapping and she would talk to me about what situations do kind of trigger me the most. And in one session you can't possibly think of all the scenarios that might trigger me, which is why it's great to know the tool now, because when I think of something or when I may be like walking in somebody's basement like I didn't think that this would like to trigger me and we didn't tap it through, I can then right away then kind of tap it through.
So how the heck do I know this worked?
Well, I did this many months ago and I hadn't seen a mouse in that time. So just this past week I was in Puerto Rico and we were in this outdoor kitchen and there were a bunch of cats and there were these four cats that were playing with the mouse. This mouse was like running around. They weren't trying to kill it and eat it, etc. They're just like playing with it.
They would kind of like catch it and let it go and then go play with it again. And normally I would have jumped on the table because this was just like a few feet from me and I couldn't even believe it. But my body was like, totally calm. I was just like watching the cat play with this mouse. Like I'm still shocked. And so they did that for like an hour. And at one point it was like pretty close to us. So it was kind of under the table and not under, but right on the side of the table and nothing. And so if you have this like a fear, again like spiders are so common or, whatever, I would just highly recommend looking into this and all my life of having this fear, the first thing that actually worked.
And so I think that's all I have to say about this. So that's the whole purpose of me making this video because I think this is so important. I want to get the message out. So please share this with any friends that are struggling with some debilitating fear.
And I hope you all have a great rest of your day and I'll see you at the next one!
If you'd like to explore any of this information further or obtain an individualized nutrition plan, you can schedule an initial appointment at our clinic. We also take insurance and some of our clients get full coverage, which is great.
Or you can just start by downloading our FREE GUIDE: 5 WAYS TO IMPROVE GUT HEALTH
