From Fear to Freedom: How to Eliminate Excessive Worry and Anxiety from Your Life and Learn to Live in Peace

By D. J. Macarthur

Using her own personal experience as well as her professional training, Ms. Macarthur discusses different types of fears that plague our lives and how they affect our successes, our dreams and our sense of peace and security. In the second half, she then presents a number of techniques for dispelling our fears and gaining control over our lives. These are proven methods, many of which we can learn and practice ourselves, without the help of a therapist. Some are even incredibly simple, so much so that it seems impossible that they could help. This is a little book with a big impact.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Mar 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452532981

D. J. Macarthur

D. June Macarthur has had years of experience counselling clients for effective, lasting and rapid change. She is a graduate of York University in Toronto, Canada and Master Practitioner of NLP. Over the years, she has continued to learn a variety of other therapies. Suffering from several forms of fear throughout her life she has used her learnings and the techniques discussed in her book to bring peace to her own life. This is her first book. June is married with grown children and is grandmother to six. She shares many of her techniques with her family as well. She lives north of Toronto in Canada.

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Copyright © 2011 D. J. Macarthur

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-3297-4 (sc)

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902789

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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Printed in the United States of America

Balboa Press rev. date: 03/29/2011

For Frank who taught me confidence and to laugh at myself.

For my daughters who have brought me great joy.

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. ~Henry David Thoreau

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. Explicit Fears

2. Universal or Collective Fears

3. Generalized or Vague Fears

4. When We Need Help

5. Dealing with our Fears

Traditional Methods of Coping

A Selection of Helpful Measures:

1. Psychotherapy

2. Positive Affirmations

3. Neuro-Linguistic Programming

4. Energy Psychology

5. Emotional Freedom Technique and other variations

6. Sedona Method®

7. Hypnotherapy

8. HeartMath®

9. PSYCH-K®

10. Body Intelligence

11. Present Moment Focus

12. The Law of Attraction

Finding what is right for you

Appendix I

A short exercise using the NLP Trauma Procedure

Eye Movement Exercises

Appendix II

A description of Emotional Freedom Technique

Resources

About the Author

Preface

It was always somewhat of a mystery to me that in spite of a childhood spent in a loving, kind and gentle family, I harbored for much of my life a number of fears and anxieties that at times kept me from achieving what I truly wanted. There were certainly times when I felt confident and, in fact, quite courageous. I was a very independent young woman and decided, much to my parents’ despair, to go just about as far away as possible to university after finishing high school. This meant that at the age of eighteen, I travelled across the country and attended school about 3500 kilometers away from home. Later I readily agreed to follow my future husband to Europe, in spite of having known him less than 8 months.

On the other hand, I was painfully shy in high school and was terrified of answering the phone at home in case it was a boy wanting to talk to me. It took all the courage I could muster to speak up in class. Thinking back, I believe that I was well liked and respected – I was even voted prefect for our class – but I did not see that myself. My self-image was distorted and appalling.

Even as an older woman, I had several fears that provoked elaborate methods of avoidance and covering up. I was embarrassed by my fears and hated to admit to them.

I can only think that I was a very sensitive child and misinterpreted things that people said to me, or events that happened to me. I know that I had a very lively imagination and that my self-talk was often laced with criticism. If one believes in re-incarnation, it may be that I was