Podcast : "Stop Talking To Yourself Like That." | Why Your Inner Voice Is Key to Beating Emetophobia

Understanding the Critical Voice

How many times a day do you think you put yourself down without even noticing? Not the big, obvious moments, the quiet ones. "I can't handle this." "I'm being ridiculous." "Everyone else can just get on the flight, why can't I?" For most emetophobes, that inner negative and judgemental commentary runs almost constantly.

Theresa was no exception. She says she spoke down to herself all the time. She told herself she couldn't handle things like boats and flights and the people around her picked up on it too, quietly shielding her from anything that might scare her.  However well-meant this was from those people it sadly only confirmed Theresa's belief that she in fact couldn't cope.

In 2023, on holiday in Hawaii, the fear escalated further than it ever had before,  nauseous, anxious, and Theresa found herself completely unable to talk herself down.

The Power of Self-Compassion

Every time you criticise yourself for feeling anxious, every time you tell yourself you're "being pathetic" for panicking about nausea, you're lowering your self esteem. High self-esteem powers your ability to cope.

Theresa's explains her turning point, "I learned to be my own best friend and cheerleader," she says. She learnt to talk to herself  the way she'd talk to someone she actually liked.

Here's the bit people get wrong: self-compassion isn't about wrapping yourself in cotton wool or avoiding discomfort. It's what actually gives you the resilience to face things head-on. "Instead of avoiding situations, I started to face them head-on, knowing I was capable of handling whatever came my way," Theresa says. Notice the order, the compassion came first, and the courage followed. Not the other way round.

And crucially, she didn't need the fear to disappear before she could feel that way. "I realised that it was okay to feel scared, but I didn't have to let that fear control my life."

Being scared and being capable were never mutually exclusive. She just needed a voice in her own head that believed she was capable, instead of one telling her she wasn't.

If Theresa had just white-knuckled more boats and more flights without touching how she spoke to herself in the process, she'd have been exposing herself to situations she found difficult while using a critical voice and telling herself she couldn't cope. That's not recovery, that's endurance and it doesn't hold. The self-compassion work is what changed the belief driving the fear in the first place, which is why she is now emetophobia-free and thriving!