A Step-by-Step Plan for Overcoming the Fears That Hold Us Back.
How I Overcame My Irrational Fear of Selfie Taking.
In this short read I outline how I conquered my fear of taking, or being in selfies, using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. As a therapist I have helped many people overcome their fears and yet my own issue continued to hold me back.
Post Treatment in Car Selfie - Not Perfect But Not That Bad.
It might seem silly, particularly to anyone under the age of 20, but I literally never take selfies and avoid all photographic opportunities. This is partly because my selfie taking skills are dire. Mostly though, it’s because I have a fear of being photographed in general. In fact, anyone who knows me well, is aware of the ridiculous lengths I would go to in order to make sure it never happened. But not anymore! This summer I planned to get over that fear and I’ve outline it below so you can do so too. It is fair to see though, it is a work in progress.
Avoidance
When we fear something, the thought of what might happen and all the uncomfortable feelings that goes with it, is enough to make us avoid the situation all together. But I can tell you that this strategy is a rotten one. Each time I managed to escape having my picture taken, I felt like I had dodged a bullet, and the relief was intense and immediate, but in a world obsessed with selfie taking, it is never long before the next enforced photographic opportunity comes about, and I felt more and more uncomfortable every time it happened. Why do people feel the need to record every single moment of their life and then post it online, for all to see? It’s like if it’s not on Facebook or Insta, did that moment really happen?
While avoiding things is not the most helpful strategy, there’s something I used do that is even worse…. when I just could not avoid that forever-to-be-captured moment completely, I would take extreme measures to make sure that I was as invisible as possible. At the very last minute I would stand behind a bigger person for example, or make sure I am just out of range - that’s my favourite! Below is my latest family group selfie attempt. Hiding is clearly a family strategy! This summer I decided it was time to confront my phobia, which was forever holding me back in life.
How I Conquered My Fear
Work out my fear thought. What was so bad about having my photo taken? What did I fear the outcome might be – too uncomfortable to share!
What was the likelihood of that fear happening - quite likely actually!
Next and crucially, I needed to stop avoiding and instead engage fully in the process, to learn that my fear was unlikely to come true. If I did this, I would at last overcome my fear. This is what therapists call habituating or getting comfortable with the uncomfortable.
I then needed to drop my safety behaviours of avoidance or hiding and instead develop some helpful coping strategies and fast! So, I signed up super quick for a course with Gerri Campbell, Brand Photographer! It turns out there are a few key skills when it comes to taking a good selfie and they make all the difference!
Finally, I designed a behavioural experiment to see if my fear came true. I plucked up all my courage, employed some of Gerry’s tips and took a few selfies, fully expecting the results to be dire. Most importantly, I then sent them, without checking or editing, to a few trusted people.
My learning? It’s not my favourite thing to do but the more I take selfies and send them, the easier it gets. They might not be great but they’re not so bad either and if they are, so what? … So long as I can delete them if they are truly awful …. I might need to go back to step 3 about dropping safety behaviours......!
The Moral of the Story?
To get over our fears, we need to face them and that includes dropping all behaviours that make it easier to tolerate the situation. When we’ve worked through that process, we need to ask ourselves whether that thing we worried about is so scary after all. The likelihood is that it’s not. It might not be something we love, but if we go through this process enough times, we should learn we can cope.
Thank you to the ECBT team, some trusted friends, my long-suffering supervisor and Gerri Campbell Brand Photographer for helping me through this process. If your anxiety or fear is holding you back and you feel you need some support in working through the above steps, we can help!
Avoidant Family Selfie Pre Treatment
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