We’re talking anxiety, and we’re explaining the role of the subconscious mind in taking charge of anxiety and panic. Now one job of the subconscious mind is to get things done as efficiently as possible, so think of the example we used in the last video of learning to drive a car – the subconscious is programmed, and then takes that job over, so you largely don’t have to think when you drive a car.

Another job is to look after you, to keep you safe, and I’ll give you an example of programming with regard to this.

Think of when you were a child and you burned your hand on the hot plate of a stove. The memory of that is stored in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, and the emotion that goes with that is stored in another part called the amygdala. So you don’t have to think about not touching the hot plate again, we’re programmed not to do that. You see a hotplate, and the correlation is made between the memory in the hippocampus and the emotion in the amygdala – Hot plate MEANS pain. We don’t touch it.

This is how our subconscious stress response protects us, and it’s how we learn and adapt as we go through life.

But then let’s use public speaking as an example of how this programming may have gone a bit haywire. Jerry Seinfeld talks about how the majority of people would rather be in the box at a funeral than delivering the eulogy, and if you’re feeling anxiety or panic around public speaking, at some stage you’ve unconsciously set up a program whereby your body responds to that situation in the same way that it would to something like a deadly snake.

Something has happened at some stage where the correlation has been made between the memory in the hippocampus and the emotional part of the brain, the amygdala, so that public speaking means danger!! That belief has been set up.

When there’s a danger, you haven’t got time to wait for your logical brain, the correlation is made and your body begins to prepare for danger. Chemicals are released without you thinking. You’re getting that stress response, the fight or flight response, in your body.

How did that program get set up?

It’s different for everybody, but perhaps you had a speech to do at school and it didn’t go too well, everyone laughed, you felt embarrassment and shame and put MEANING on it that public speaking is not for you. Then as you went through life, maybe you continued to find evidence to support that decision and the belief becomes deeply ingrained, creating a programmed response, which can tend to snowball and become more and more extreme.

These programs feel normal – whether it’s getting anxious, or getting angry or upset, and then we live our life around them.

If you’re getting triggered by anything, you need to look at these programs that are firing off. Anxiety, road rage, domestic violence, one punch attacks, these are all examples of people being triggered and reacting.

So at World Class Friend we use processes that identify the triggers and the emotion that goes with them, and we undo that correlation at the subconscious level so that you’re not being triggered. So standing up in front of a room of people doesn’t MEAN that your stomach drops, your heart starts to beat out of your chest, you choke up, and want to run for the nearest exit.