I had a strange nervous feeling in my stomach this morning which reminded me about a technique I learned from Richard Bandler. It may sound a bit strange, but if you realise that any sensations that you feel, they will continue, they must be moving. If they weren’t moving the nerves would habituate and you would stop feeling it. So there’s always movement where there’s a sensation. Bandler’s idea is to identify the way the sensation and feeling is moving, whether it’s moving from top to bottom or spinning around, if you focus on the feeling, you can identify it.
For example, this morning the feeling in my stomach was moving from top to bottom, then to the back and then round again, sort of in a continuous round. His idea is to mentally imagine pulling that out of your body, flipping it over, and pushing it back in, so in essence it will be spinning in the opposite way. I’ve always found that it is a bit cumbersome but as soon as I find I have identified the way the feeling is moving I can, using my imagination, move it the opposite way.
This one this morning was moving front ways and down, so I mentally pulled it up and made it spin up and back, in the opposite direction, and as soon as I did that, and started spinning it a little bit quicker, the feeling just vanished. It’s almost instant, I’ve got it so well practised now, I can move that fairly quickly. It’s an interesting technique to master and definitely worth it.
Try it on some small feelings to start with and see how you get on. The thing with all these techniques is it’s a matter of practising when you’re not desperate so when something large looms you’re well practised and you can just nip it in the bud. I think that with all panic attack symptoms it’s important to nip it in the bud before it starts.
