The Day I Realised I Was No Longer Afraid of Snakes

Living in Queensland, particularly in the country, you learn that there are certain visitors you may occasionally find on your doorstep.

But a couple weeks ago, I had a visitor that would once have sent me into complete panic.

A huge python was lying near our front door.

And something quite unexpected happened. I walked towards it. Not because I was trying to be brave. Not because I was forcing myself to confront my fear. I simply found myself curious. I wanted to have a look at it.

I noticed its beautiful colours and diamond shaped markings. I watched the way it moved and, rather than feeling overwhelmed by fear, I was fascinated by it.

Eventually, it slithered away into the bush. And it was only afterwards that I stood there thinking: “Wow. If this had happened to me years ago, I would have completely lost it.”

I don't mean that as an exaggeration. I had a very real phobia of snakes. The sight of one could trigger such an intense reaction that my instinct would have been to get as far away from it as possible. If I even could, getting on a plane and changing countries just to get away from it.” I could have imagined myself running inside, screaming, fainting, or doing almost anything to escape the situation.

And yet here I was, standing only a short distance away from a large python, calmly watching it disappear into the bush.

The difference wasn't that I had suddenly decided that snakes were harmless. I still have a healthy fear and respect for them. The difference was that the fear was no longer controlling my response.

I had experienced hypnotherapy myself. Around four years ago, when I first began developing my own practice, I underwent hypnotherapy to work on my fear of snakes.

At the time, I knew what it was like to have a phobia from the inside. A phobia isn't simply thinking, “I don't like snakes.” It can be an automatic response that happens before the conscious mind has even had time to reason with it. People living with phobias often know that their fear is irrational, but that doesn’t mean they can simply switch it off. The fear is real to them, even when they understand that there may be no rational explanation for it.

The body reacts. The heart races. The nervous system goes into alarm. The mind wants to escape. And sometimes the reaction can feel completely disproportionate to what is actually happening in front of you.

Hypnotherapy helped me change my relationship with that fear.

I didn't wake up one morning and suddenly become someone who wanted to pick up snakes. Instead, something much more useful happened.

The intensity of the response changed.

The fear no longer had the same hold over me. And the past couple weeks, I realised just how much that had changed.

Sometimes we don't realise how far we've come.

I think that's one of the fascinating things about working with the subconscious. We can spend so much time focusing on what we want to change that we don't always notice when the change has already happened. Until life gives us a moment that shows us.

For me, that moment was sitting on my doorstep looking at a python. The woman I was years ago would have seen a terrifying creature. The woman I am now could see the same creature and notice its patterns, its colours and the way it moved.

The snake hadn't changed. I had.

And perhaps that is one of the most important things I have learned through my own experience with hypnotherapy. We don't necessarily need to change the world around us. Sometimes, we need to change the way our mind and nervous system respond to what we encounter within it.

What might be possible for you?

Phobias can be incredibly limiting. They can influence where we go, what we do, what we avoid and even how we feel in our own surroundings.

But a fear that has been with you for years doesn't necessarily have to remain there forever. Hypnotherapy can be used to explore and work with the subconscious patterns behind unwanted emotional responses, helping create the possibility of responding differently.

My own experience is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in the work I do. I don't simply work with clients from a theoretical perspective.

I have sat on the other side of the process myself.

And a couple weeks ago, standing on my doorstep watching that enormous python disappear into the Queensland bush, I had a little moment of gratitude. Not because I had become fearless. But because I realised that something that once had enormous power over me simply didn't anymore.

Sometimes healing is not a dramatic moment. Sometimes it's simply standing in the place where you once would have run... and realising you no longer need to.