Common hurdles overcoming Emetophobia

Emetophobia can be successfully treated and overcome with the help of the Thrive Programme. It’s a straightforward, simple programme to follow, but it does require hard work and dedication to achieve. It’s so simple, in fact, that everything you need to do to overcome your phobia is in the first few chapters of the manual — and there’s no exposure therapy involved.

Nevertheless, you may face hurdles along the way, and that’s absolutely fine. Hurdles are a normal, expected part of working towards any goal. This episode will help you understand what hurdles you may face, and how you can overcome them, so small ripples don’t turn into huge waves.

Helplessness, co-morbid symptoms and perfectionism

Emetophobes often feel helpless and powerless when it comes to their phobia, despite being successful and powerful in other areas of their lives. They may have tried numerous methods to overcome their fear without success, leading them to believe that nothing can be done. To overcome this, we suggest watching some of the testimonials before you start — particularly the more severe ones, where they talk about how much hard work they put in and how much they struggled.

Many people have other issues going on in their lives that could affect how easily information is processed. We’ve helped thousands of people over the years, and we want to reassure you that it’s still very possible to overcome your phobia. We’ve created several different variations of the programme to help you adapt it to your specific needs.

People with emetophobia are also perfectionists. Often perfectionism is worn as a badge of pride, but it can be a huge hindrance to progress. Some individuals put too much pressure on themselves to do everything perfectly, making it harder to make progress — any minor blip is seen as a huge problem and a reason they’ll never overcome their fear. It’s important to understand that you only need to go through the programme doing ‘averagely well’ to beat this. Perfection kills momentum — progress is the opposite of perfection.

Fear of failure, and blips

Related to perfectionism is a fear of failure. Often people don’t even try, because they can’t tolerate the feelings of not doing something perfectly. They look for the first reason the programme hasn’t worked for them and give up, instead of recognising all the improvements they’ve made.

It’s common to experience setbacks or ‘blips’. A blip can go from a tiny dip in the road to a huge sinkhole if you don’t gain perspective. Blips are temporary, and the way out is always the same: regaining perspective, reminding yourself of the progress you’ve made so far, and seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

Working on the right things

We receive messages from emetophobes saying they are working hard but not improving, and it’s always because they’re not working hard in the right areas. They may spend 3 hours a day reading the manual, writing notes, adding post-it notes, organising and colour-coding everything, which is great — but it’s futile if they’re not actually leaving the house and doing the programme!

Finally, you need to understand that your phobia is not happening TO you. It’s not vomit that’s causing the phobia, it’s how you react to it. Whether it takes you 6 weeks or 6 years to beat this, once you understand how simple and predictable it is, you’ll be well on your way to regaining control of your life and thriving.

This episode featured discussion between Joe Manuel and Rob Kelly.