Fear of commitment is a fear of rejection...
A common cry from my clients in my Hypnotherapy clinic in London is 'I have finally found the partner of my dreams...why am I feeling so anxious and want to end the relationship?'
This issue is more common than you may think and has resulted in huge numbers of relationships foundering.
In order to explain what is happening here we need to look at the mechanism of the human brain. The brain is divided into two sections...the conscious (i.e. the logical, analytical, intelligent part) which takes up approximately 10% of the brain and the subconscious which takes up the remaining 90% and is the bit 'behind the locked door.'
Everything we have ever seen, felt, heard or smelt is recorded permanently somewhere in the brain...nothing ever gets deleted. Until the age of approximately six years, the majority of this data is deposited in the subconscious...and this is the part that is very relevant to fear.
Early childhood events shape us...they mould us into the adults we will become. Negative experiences when young create files in our subconscious that are still referred to many years later...some of our behaviour as adults is actually the young child within us dictating our attitudes and responses.
A recent client described at our first meeting how he just wanted to meet a lovely lady, get married and have children. He explained that as soon as a relationship became serious he felt compelled to end it.
Whilst in hypnosis, he remembered a situation where he was around 3 years old and his father came in drunk and began physically and verbally abusing his mother. Their marriage failed, and he subsequently witnessed his mother constantly repeating the unhappy, abortive process with other partners.
As an adult he consciously wanted nothing more than to settle down and have a family. His subconscious had other ideas and actually felt it was 'protecting' him when he ended a relationship that had been moving in the right direction. His childhood observation of his mother's disastrous relationships had caused him to be wary and mistrustful of commitment.
A person suffering with commitment phobia needs to identify the root cause of their issue before they can successfully move on. Regression Hypnotherapy enables hidden early childhood memories and emotions to be revealed and then subsequently processed as an adult, rather than the young child that originally experienced them.
David