Where Do Phobias Come From?

During our lives we have all manner of experience.

Sometimes they are strong enough to impact our deep decision making process – then we decide to believe something new.

This new belief is instantly stored in our subconscious mind to be noted and acted on during all activities. Most beliefs are taken on as young children. Because they are from a young child’s perspective, they may seem odd to you now. Know this is irrelevant; they are very real within your mind.

Another example of acquiring Cynophobia (fear of dogs) is:

A child is running ahead of her parents in the park
When suddenly she hears screams
She jumps and becomes very scared
Then a dog knocks her down and licks her face
She screams and cries in terror

The screaming which frightened the child was her parent’s. They saw how she was running towards a dog unaware, and feared the dog attacking. So they screamed out to get her attention so she would stop. Little did they know it was their action which terrified the child, and the dog that was friendly just wanted to lick and play with her.

The affect of this terrifying experience was that the child associated the fear with the dog – and decided that dogs were to be feared.

This decision was automatically sent to her subconscious mind
and stored as one of her beliefs.

Like all of us, this child grew up living each day according to her subconscious belief system – in this case, terrified of dogs.

This affects the child, now a grown adult, every time a dog is thought of, or seen, even if only on television.

She feels the fear as strongly now, as if it was the original incident.
She relives the feelings of that moment of terror, over and over, as if happening now.
The child couldn’t go to friend’s houses because they had a dog, so she isolated herself by missing social activities.
Her friends thinking her strange, gradually drifted away, so then she became isolated at school, which led to loneliness, depression, and disliking people in general.
As an adult, life isn’t any easier. She still avoids contact with dogs, and people now. Making excuses not to visit friends who own dogs, not walking or jogging because she saw a dog off lead while driving, not allowing her own children to get a puppy.
People still think she is rather a strange person and more often than not avoid contact with her too, which creates even more issues.

The funny thing is, that if you ask the woman why she is so scared of dogs and now people, she couldn’t tell you.

Just like the person who is scared of heights, or doesn’t think they deserve, or thinks they are a failure, the memory of the incident that led to the inception of her fear of dogs belief has faded, while the terrifying feelings from that event remain strong, and grow with each repeated fear experience.

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