This Stress Tip has been kindly supplied by Adam Szmerling is a Mindfulness based Counsellor and Hypnotherapist in Melbourne. Adam’s contact details can be found at the bottom of the post.

If you want to stop blushing you have probably had your fill of anxiety about blushing by now. You probably know how the fear of blushing contributes to social avoidance and even makes you likely to blush more frequently and for longer. It’s a vicious cycle.

Even if you have tried counseling and hypnotherapy, you may not have really addressed the root cause of your blushing issue.

Many attribute blushing fears and experiences as a part of social anxiety disorder. And that is accurate to a point. But social anxiety is usually secondary to a deeper shame based feeling which you are seeking to avoid at all costs.

Shame suggests a part of you doesn’t believe you are good enough. And you try to avoid feeling shame at all costs.

The roots of shame run deep and there are frequently cultural, social, family and our own psychological influences of developing and maintaining inner shame. This can be true even if we feel confident a lot of the time, because shame is usually unconscious.

Mere cognitive behavioural approaches may not be adequate to address shame based blushing, although they can assist with anxious provoking thoughts. Group therapy can help social anxiety, too.

But if you really want to feel deeply secure within yourself you may need to look deeper into shame.

If you have an empathic counsellor or psychotherapist they can help you to feel safe and held emotionally. A therapist trained in hypnotherapy and mindfulness can help you even more because you can over time learn how to stop worrying about facial blushing. Hypnotherapy works with the unconscious, which is where blushing and shame originate.

Mindfulness counselling helps you to become accepting of your inner thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations non-judgementally and over time, stop reacting to them. Ironically by this letting go of control, more control and insights ensue.

Although shame itself can be somewhat hidden and difficult to access, with a competent hypnotherapist and counsellor you can relax into your feelings rather than trying to fix, analyse or control them. This is how to start resolving the source of your blushing. Also the confessional process of counselling allows you to feel safe and accepted with the right therapist, which in itself can help you to start accepting yourself and develop internal security.

There are many competent therapists who can assist with shame both online and person such as in Melbourne, where you can find trained psychotherapists in this area. Also joining a mindfulness meditation group if you are willing, or listening to a hypnosis for blushing MP3 would also be a great start. Do not despair. Change is entirely possible!

Adam Szmerling
Grad Dip Psychotherapy (MAHA)
Suite 4/75 Bay St
Brighton 3186
03 9530 6353

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