Traumatic Incident Reduction Association

TIRA eNotes – Dec. 2019 (No. 19)

Fear of Future Events (Probable or Improbable)

As you may know, Traumatic Incident Reduction is excellent for resolving painful memories of stressful past events.  What if your attention is stuck, not on the past but the future?  What can be done about that?  You might think that nothing can be done, since the event we dread has not happened (yet).  Good news, there is an application known as – you guessed it – “Future TIR” that works very well.

Here are a few examples where Future TIR may be useful:

  • Fear of loss of a loved one
  • Fear of loss of a job or career
  • Fear of a medical condition, injury or accident
  • Fear of a social shaming event

It is possible that such fears may be rooted in the past.  If so, we can address them with TIR.  At the same time, being a person-centered method, Applied Metapsychology (the larger subject of which TIR is a key part), uses your attention and interest to discover the most useful way to proceed.

Addressing an incident that hasn’t happened yet (and in some cases may not happen at all), is different than addressing a bad incident that has already happened.  Typically, Future TIR tends to reach an end point more quickly, interestingly enough.

Now let’s consider some specifics.

  • A recently engaged woman was sure that her fiancé was going to leave her at the altar.  Despite reassurances from her fiancé (getting slightly more exasperated as time went on), she could not stop worrying about it.  A Future TIR session laid this to rest and she was able to enjoy this happy time.
  • A man who was terrified of losing his job was able to make use of Future TIR to feel that he had many possibilities open to him.
  • Someone who had lost a spouse was feeling that life was “over” and that all that was left was waiting for death.  A relatively quick session and possibilities opened up for this person as well.
  • Another person was worried about the effect of losing a parent who had been quite ill for some time.  Addressing this future loss allowed her to experience the loss and still feel strong in herself.

There are many more examples of the successful application of Future TIR*

This is not a matter of “positive thinking” or trying to be logical.  It is a matter of doing the work of desensitizing a dreaded future event so that it does not have undue power over us.  It’s not a matter of “looking on the bright side” or wearing rose colored glasses.  In fact, it has proven most useful to start with the most awful scenario we can conceive of.  Once we have done some work and flattened that one off, we can move on to looking at other possible scenarios.  As a result, we are ready to face whatever comes and experience it as it happens, without wasting our energy and attention “awfulizing” future events before they unfold.  This allows us to be more fully present and responsive to what life has in store.

*Future TIR is taught in one of the two second level workshops:  TIR – Expanded Applications