Until my clients are cleared and reprogrammed, I usually create for them a tool that helps them handle the difficulties in their life. This tool is a safe place within themselves that they can take themselves to whenever the stresses of life begin to plague them. In this safe place, once created, my client can experience a feeling of profound safety, peace, tranquility and serenity. I build this safe place so that it has within it, a place of safety and relaxation, freedom from all the cares and responsibilities of life. Nothing bad, disquieting or disconcerting can reach this safe place. Here, everything is just fine and you are completely OK without a care or fear in the world.
I produce the safe place by pyramiding deep relaxation inductions along with creative visualization of a place in nature that is consistent with the client’s own sense of peace and safety. For instance, I would not create a safe place by an ocean for someone who is afraid of water, so I get an idea of what is satisfying to the client by talking to him/her before proceeding. It is important to get the client into a very deeply relaxed state before the visual experience through progressive relaxation techniques.
Since the subconscious mind is a bio-computer, it is capable of exercising sub-routines and I anchor the safe place to some convenient trigger point on the client’s body using NLP technology. When the trigger is set, all the client has to do to activate it is touch the trigger point where the sub-routine is anchored and his subconscious computer will take him to the images and feelings he experienced during the safe place’s creation by exercising the anchored sub-routine through the trigger point. Once the safe place is created, the client must exercise it several times each day for about a month in order for the sub-routine to be permanently imbedded on the subconscious computer’s hard drive. Once it is set by repetition, the client will own the safe place for life.
I first used the idea of a safe place about twelve years ago to help some government officials who all had intense stage fright and who had to give briefings on their work to their bosses in Washington, DC. There were seven of these officials and two of them stuttered badly when under stress, which public speaking causes. Incidentally, these gentlemen were not alone in their fear as it is a proven fact that fear of public speaking is rated worse than the fear of death. These officials came to me in a group for help with their fears.

Usually, I would look for the negative forcing functions within their subconscious that made them so fearful of public speaking and release the energy that supported the fear program in their subconscious computer. However, they were not interested in going through the necessary therapy to do this and wanted to know if I could do something simple for them to relieve all of them of their fear at the same time. I came up with the idea of the safe place configured for their special need and suggested that we try it and they agreed.
I put all of them into a very deep group trance, configured the safe place and installed the anchor- trigger in an innocuous place so they could actuate it without anyone noticing what they were doing. I then brought them out of hypnosis and instructed them to use the trigger often to imbed it into their subconscious. They did as I asked and they later reported to me that it worked for all of them and the two stutterers stopped stuttering when they used the anchor-trigger. When getting ready to go on stage, they would just touch the anchor-trigger and the feelings and images of the safe place would flood them and all fear left them. They were relaxed and at ease and did wonderfully in their public speaking endeavors. The stutterers said that as soon as they felt the need to stutter coming upon them, they would actuate the anchor-trigger and the stuttering would immediately stop. They were all very happy indeed.
Since then I provide my students and clients with this safe place and they all find it beneficial in relieving stress of any kind, including not only fear, but sadness, guilt, shame anger and other stressful emotions. It is a great tranquilizer and has no negative side effects. The safe place does not get rid of the source energy of the fear buried in the subconscious, but it helps the sufferer just as medicine does and temporarily relieves the miserable symptoms.

Dr. Skillas is a Board Certified Advanced Clinical Hypnotherapist and Certified National Guild of Hypnotists (NGH) Hypnotherapy Instructor. Call 404-252-4540 for details.