Use this easy hypnotherapy exercise to beat your fear of networking
Is a fear of networking and meeting strangers holding back your career or business? This easy hypnotherapy exercise will help you beat it.
Fear is a natural and heathy emotion, and it plays a very important part in our lives as it protects us from potential danger. But sometimes fear can be misplaced, and we find ourselves feeling anxious about situations that pose no threat to us at all.
As Monica Black from Hampstead Hypnotherapy explains, one common situation that unnecessarily triggers our natural fear response is networking events, and meeting new people for the first time.
Do you suffer from minglephobia?
If you’re running your own business, or looking to build your career, networking events are a necessary evil. And all too often, we avoid these events because of ‘minglephobia’ – the fear of meeting new people at social events.
Concerned that you may be suffering from minglephobia? To find out just answer these questions. When you hear the word ‘networking’ or attend a networking event do you:
- Come out in a cold sweat?
- Does your heart beat faster?
- Do you get sweaty palms?
- Do your words come out all wrong?
- Do you get brain freeze?
- Do you stop in your tracks when you enter the room?
If you answer “Yes” to any or all of the above, then it’s a sign that your fight or flight stress response has kicked in and you are suffering from minglephobia. And it’s not helping you.
Instead of protecting you from danger, your fear is keeping you from moving forward to your goal, which is to meet new people and promote yourself and/or your business.
How hypnotherapy can help you beat minglephobia
It may help to learn that you are far from alone. Indeed, many people suffer from minglephobia – even some who may appear outwardly confident.
There are plenty of practical ways you can get over your fear of networking. But there’s a much quicker way you can overcome your inhibitions and even learn to love meeting new people – and that’s hypnotherapy.
Just a couple of sessions of hypnosis will help you to get over your fear, bring down your stress response and boost your confidence so you can take back control of any hindering negative emotions and actually enjoy networking events. (These tips to help beat anxiety will help too.)
What is hypnosis?
So what is hypnosis? Many people aren’t aware of what hypnosis is. Hypnosis is simply an altered state of awareness or a deep state of relaxation. It’s a perfectly normal and natural state to have and we go into and out of hypnosis during the course of our day.
Let me give you an example – daydreaming is self-hypnosis. And have you ever driven somewhere familiar on autopilot, not recalling your journey when you arrive? That’s a form of self-hypnosis too.
And again, when you’re concentrating so hard on an important project that you tune out the world around you – that’s self-hypnosis.
An easy hypnosis exercise to control social stress
An excellent self-hypnosis, de-stress exercise that’s easy, quick and really effective is based on the simple notion of proper breathing. If your breathing is slow and controlled, you will immediately reduce your blind panic, anxious feelings, and negative thoughts.
I’d like to share with you one of my favourite self-hypnosis exercises – it’s what I call The Balloon Exercise. (If you have a fear of balloons, you can imagine your lungs inflating and deflating instead of a balloon.)
Here it is:
- Sit down and close your eyes.
- Place one hand on your tummy and the other on your chest.
- Notice how, when you breathe in, your chest inflates.
- And as you breathe out, how it deflates.
- Take a normal sized slow breath in (using your diaphragm) and imagine a balloon, that happens to be in your favourite colour, in front of you.
- Then, when you take a slow controlled breath, notice how the balloon inflates.
- And as you breathe out slowly, watch it deflate.
Do this for about three minutes, and when you’ve finished slowly open your eyes in your own time. Notice how much calmer you feel.
Practice this exercise at least once a day (more if you’re able to) and you’ll soon notice how much calmer you feel when you think about that next networking event.
What to do on the day of your event
On the day of your event, practise this exercise just before you go. Then when you walk into the room, don’t rush in and get what I call “caught up in the whoosh.”
Instead, stand your ground firmly. Feel your feet on the floor, look straight ahead and focus your eyes on an object, any object. Then focus on your breath coming and going slowly in a controlled way.
When you feel comfortable, walk into that room and start networking with confidence! Once you know and accept your fear/stress, you can deal with it and the sun will shine through and you’ll glow.
You can find out more about Hampstead Hypnotherapy on their website.
