Beat Fears By The Bunch  

Martin Murphy says you can eliminate your fears in 10 minutes.  

“Do we even need fear?” Murphy challenged. “We think fear protects us, but it is not a productive emotion. You can go to a psychologist if you want to dig, but by learning key visualization and reprogramming tools, you can 'jump right over your fear,'" says Murphy, who came to the Buellton Marriott June 7 and 8 to teach an equestrian workshop on overcoming obstacles to better horsemanship. Murphy traveled to California for the workshop from England with his business partner Graham King, founders of the The Equestrian Therapy Team.    

Murphy has 10 years experience and is a double master practitioner Neuro-Linguistic Programmer. He is also an advanced hypnotherapist and motivational coach. Murphy lives in Cheshire and his friend and business associate King is from Fife, Scotland.  

Doubters at first, by the end of the two-day workshop, all agreed that fear was something that was not needed and impaired reaching goals, and were anxious to be rid of it.  The team was invited to speak to local equestrians by Santa Ynez Marriage and Family Therapist, Faith Deeter, who was interested in his work because he does what she does, in reverse.  

Deeter said, “I use horses to help my clients overcome fears. Martin uses Neuro-Linguistic Programming to teach equestrians to overcome their apprehension of horses,” a normal feeling for anyone who has experienced injury from a painful horse-riding episode.  

Using Nuero-Linguistic Programming, Murphy spent two days with local equestrians showing them how to use his techniques to become better equestrians, change old behavior and change the effect of memories of injuries or other bad experiences.

Martin does not promise to be an expert on horses, but he does promise that using a set of visualization tools can help you become a different and more confident person in all walks of your life.

 “Know yourself, and know your enemy, and you need not fear the result of a thousand battles,” he quoted from “The Art of War,” written during the 6th century B.C. by Sun Tzu.  

Murphy states, “When we think about something, we will do so in a way based on previous patterns and experiences. Mental patterns can be altered so that positive experiences can be enhanced, and negative experiences degraded.”  

Fast mental programming (Nuero Physio-Visualization) involves associating with the experience, disassociating the experience, and then re-associating with a positive experience. The three R’s of conquering fear are relax, relearn and relate.

The workshop also explained the concept of “Bounce Back Ability,” a learning curve of human behavior beginning with the cycle of anger, and dropping downward to the emotions of anxiety, denial, fear, depression, then leveling at the bottom of the curve with “acceptance of reality,” and climbing back up the curve with beginning recovery, learning and re-energizing, emerging at the top of the curve with the qualities of confidence and personal empowerment.  

“The tools we teach help shorten the distance of the curve,” said Murphy.

Buellton farrier, Les Wolford, volunteered for a hands-on reprogramming at the workshop to overcome a new fear. Wolford, as well as the 20 others at the attendance, originally signed up for the workshop to address equestrian issues.  But before the workshop began he was the victim of a dog attack.  He didn’t have a fear of dogs before, but was recently bitten by a neighbor’s dog, his hand still swaddled in bandages.  He shared with the group the images that have been coming to him, usually at night in his sleep, of the dog attacking him.  

Working with Murphy to reprogram the memory, and to substitute positive memories of dogs he has loved in the place of the biting episode, and adding cartoon music and color, Wolford was amazed at how the feeling of fear virtually disappeared immediately.  His amazement was greater, however, when he rejoined the seated group members and realized that for the first time since the attack, all the pain in his hand was gone.  

Day two of the workshop was spent recognizing how people react to their external environment and how four distinct personality traits affect one’s success.    

“We each have our own individual map of the world; it is how we make sense of the world. We organize information via our senses into a form we can understand and work with. We respond to our maps rather than to the world itself. Often an NPL practitioner will help a client adjust their map of the world if the present one is not helping the client reach their goals,” states Murphy.  

“Set yourself up for success by raising the quality of your environment, even changing the colors of your room, and be aware of your rapport with others,” says Murphy.  

He also stressed the importance of recognizing and removing negative messages in your world and of disassociating yourself from negative labels placed on you by others.

The human mind does not recognize the word “not” or “don’t” and instead latches on to the meaning of the other words.  “Don’t see pink balloons,” he used as an example, which is of course all one sees at first while trying not to.  

Murphy has played many roles before realizing he wanted to become a therapist, including obtaining a degree in environmental science, serving in the Special Forces, and working as a personal trainer and self-protection instructor.  

“Humankind must overcome many challenges if they are to survive a precarious and uncertain future, we will have to unlock all our hidden gifts... No longer is it enough to rely on the politicians and world leaders to come to our rescue. Every one on the planet will be affected by the economic, geopolitical and environmental challenges that are happening now.  

The planet acts as a system, and if one part of a system is affected, it has repercussion in other parts. We are no longer individual countries. The challenges we face to not respect boundaries or wealth and the world is a smaller place now,” is the philosophy stated on their website, “confidence4me.”

In addition to the team’s confidence4me site, visit http:// theequestriantherapyteam.com site for more information.  Deeter would like to schedule another workshop if there is enough interest. She may be reached at (805) 350-1693.