Not surprisingly, many people have a deep-seated fear of moths. Something about the way the smooth, jagged wings of these creatures flap so slowly as they circle through the air can seem like a nightmare to many people. The way moths’ bodies are soft and easily crushed into a sort of paste can send many people into a panic. The moth flies slowly and makes a highly visible silhouette when it lands. Also, moths fly in seemingly arbitrary circles and appear to make no attempt to avoid humans. Something about that dark shape triggers a primal reaction in many people: fear of the living callousness of nature. Often, people with a general phobia of insects have a specific terror of moths, those obscure and little-understood cousins of butterflies.
Typical Cures for Moth Phobia
What should you do if your dislike reaches the level of an obsession, where you not only run out of the room when you see a moth, but you feel constantly being chased by imaginary moths, or you can no longer live in your house during the summer because creatures dark, slow and winged are always flying from outside? Most people whose suffering reaches this point turn to traditional therapy to try to cure their phobia.
Traditional therapy consists of delving into your past in the company of a trained psychologist. In the course of long conversations (perhaps with the help of hypnosis), you will try to find the first incidents that have shaped your brain in such a way that it goes into “panic mode” every time you see a moth. Perhaps you were chasing one of these creatures and got unexpectedly stung by a bee. Or maybe you were just thoughtful, sensitive, and imaginative as a child, and you started having nightmares about moths because these creatures are inherently terrifying.
Why traditional therapy might not work
These methods of curing your phobia may not work, simply because there may not be a clearly defined traumatic incident that caused it. It is true that a very skilled therapist can convince you to give up your phobia even if there is no obvious cause. However, this process can be time consuming and is far from guaranteed.
A more effective shortcut to overcome the fear of moths
Fortunately, there is a shortcut to overcoming phobias, one that has been discovered by studying the techniques of some of the world’s most effective therapists. That shortcut is through a system called NLP, which stands for neuro-linguistic programming. NLP works quickly because it avoids the need to discover the roots of your phobia in the past. Instead, it focuses on your present.
How does NLP help?
NLP works very well because most phobias are conditioned responses. Pavlov’s dogs always had the same instinctive reaction when they heard the sound of a bell. Similarly, the person with the phobia always has the same knee-jerk reaction when he sees her anxiety triggers. Panic thoughts follow a clear and invariable pattern.
What NLP does is teach your unconscious mind new thought patterns. With the help of NLP, you will learn to isolate and recognize the irrational reaction in yourself. Then, using a combination of NLP and hypnotherapy techniques, you will learn to retrain your mind to form new associations. So, for example, instead of associating moths with panic, you’ll learn to associate them with calm and joy. In this way, you can easily cure your fear of moths.
