Toddlers need to make an effort to walk. As children and adults it should be easy. Sometimes, however, it becomes more of an effort than it ought to be and sometimes our own brains and their fears get in the way.
I seem to be taking on a new genre of client recently. I’m now using hypnotherapy in Vancouver to help people recover their confidence with walking after a fall in the home.
It’s a scary thing to fall after a lifetime of carefree and effortless walking. It can feel as if things will never be the same again. Independence is a treasured commodity at all times but never more so than when it seems as if it might be coming to an end.
The worse the fall, of course, the greater the danger that our confidence in our ability to walk from A to B will be severely impaired.
It needn’t be this way, however, you can learn to undo the damage and to recover your confidence. Hypnotherapy in Vancouver could help you to regain your confidence, your independence and your life.
But isn’t fear a good thing after a fall? Shouldn’t we be afraid so that we’re more careful?
At some stage we may have to recognise that our days of running through fields and dancing without a care have come to an end. At some stage we may have to start taking that little bit more care.
We may, as age creeps upon us, need to learn to be a bit more cautious in what we do with our bodies. Fear, however, may well be a step too far and it can even become counter-productive.
Walking becomes a subconscious act once we learn it in our infancy. When you first learned to walk you had to consciously learn how to co-ordinate a centre of gravity with dozens of muscle, tendons and joints. Once earned, however, you simply willed yourself to walk to a certain point and could do it without a thought.
After a fall, however, many people go back to walking consciously, taking so much care over their movements that they interfere with their body’s learned ability to co-ordinate its movements without thought. We thus make future falls more, not less, likely.
Furthermore, we tend to shy away from things we fear. We may choose to walk less or to use artificial aids, both of which can weaken our memories of walking freely and with confidence. We can become dependent upon a frame or sticks and so forget that we can relearn to walk without them.