Fear of Vomit and Pregnancy: How to Navigate the Emetophobia in Preparation for Pregnancy and Parenthood
Today I am diving into a topic that affects more people than you might imagine – the fear of vomit and pregnancy.
The fear of being sick is also known as emetophobia and while it may not be the number one fear for everyone, it ranks high on the list of most common phobias.
During this episode I explore the seriousness of this fear, and its impact on those contemplating pregnancy or dealing with a fear of pregnancy or giving birth. I’ll also be sharing insights and strategies to help you overcome this fear and create a fearless mindset.
Emetophobia is the fear of vomiting or being sick, and it can have a profound impact on pregnancy.
A fear of vomit or a fear of being sick is particularly tricky when coupled with the challenges of morning sickness or for those who suffer with tokophobia, the fear of pregnancy or giving birth. When your phobias start to stack on top of each other, things can quickly feel overwhelming.
Emetophobia: Understanding the Fear of Vomit or Being Sick
Emetophobia is no ordinary dislike of throwing up. It’s a deep-seated fear that can elicit intense anxiety and panic at the mere thought of vomiting or being around others who might.
This fear often extends to situations where illness is a possibility, leading to a complex web of anxieties.
From discomfort to phobia: How it develops
The roots of emetophobia can often be traced back to personal experiences or traumas involving vomiting. It might be a childhood memory of a stomach bug or witnessing someone fall ill. Over time, these experiences become etched in the mind, linking vomiting with extreme fear and distress.
As the fear solidifies, it begins to infiltrate various aspects of life. People with emetophobia might become hypervigilant about potential sources of illness, meticulously avoiding situations where vomiting could occur. This avoidance, though initially a coping mechanism, eventually reinforces the fear, turning it into a phobia that exerts significant control over one’s daily life.
How I developed my fear of vomit
I developed this phobia as a result of my baby being sick on a car journey. My partner was working away when my youngest was around 9 months, so one weekend we went to visit him. It was a really long drive and we were stuck in really bad January traffic. It was raining really badly and I was stuck in roadworks on the M25 in the UK (affectionately called the Road to Hell by Chris Rea in his famous song).
My baby used to do this thing where she would sometime bring up her milk about half an hour after feeding and I was conscious of this as I was driving soon after we had stopped for a feed. Then she started being sick! And, I was stuck in the front seat driving and couldn’t do anything about it. Because we were in roadworks I couldn’t pull over. I just had to sit there listening to her vomit all over the back of the car. It was horrid!
From then on, I would be super stressed on any journey longer than half an hour as I would anticipate the inevitable. When baby #2 turned up this continued and it was a total nightmare to deal with. But I didn’t realise at first that was was going on was a fear of vomit as I’d never had that before.
Fear of Vomit and Pregnancy: Morning Sickness
Now, imagine emetophobia and pregnancy. Now, we find a convergence of fears, where the potential for vomiting during morning sickness becomes a daunting prospect for those already grappling with emetophobia.
Morning sickness, although a normal part of many pregnancies, triggers a sense of dread for individuals with emetophobia. The anticipation of nausea or vomiting during this period amplifies their existing anxiety, creating a challenging mental and emotional landscape to navigate.
Emetophobia meets Tokophobia
When we add tokophobia to the mix too, things can quickly start to escalate emotionally. The anxiety that comes from suffering from these phobias individually is significant, but put them together and it can feel like a total nightmare.
When a fear of vomit or being sick and tokophobia are present together, the prospect of pregnancy can take on a new level of fear as the fear of vomit dominates. This can feel incredibly overwhelming and some people just don’t know where to turn.
How I overcame my fear of vomit
My situation with my kids being sick in the car came to head once when I was heading away on holiday with my kids ( and my aunt. My kids were 10 month old and 5 years at the time, so well into the vomiting age. We had a long 7 hour drive ahead of us and I was in a bit of a state. It was a 7-hour drive because i wanted to stop every hour or so to let the kids have fresh air so that they wouldn’t be sick.
For the return journey my aunt – who is a very wise lady – told me that their vomiting was in response to my fear of them vomiting. I was gobsmacked. This made NO SENSE to me! How could my anxiety around this make them sick? She insisted that I worked on clearing this before getting in the car and starting our return journey home.
So that’s what I did. I found a quiet spot and used Head Trash Clearance to clear my fear of vomit and my kids being sick in the car. It took me about 20 minutes. Then we set off on our long 7-hour drive home. Well, this drive was like NO OTHER! Both kids feel asleep at the start of the journey and DID NOT WAKE UP. We didn’t even want to stop the car for a pee in case they woke up. So we ended up not having a break on what actually turned out being a 5-hour drive (once you don’t stop every hour!).
Ever since that day, my kids were never sick in the car. Them being sick was all me!
Coping with a Fear of Vomit and Pregnancy
While the intersection of emetophobia and pregnancy may seem overwhelming, there are steps you can take to manage this fear:
1. Knowledge as Empowerment
Educate yourself about the physiological reasons behind morning sickness. Understanding that it’s often a sign of a healthy pregnancy can help reframe the fear.
You might also want to check out my podcast that touches on this. In that episode my guest explains a surprising reason behind morning sickness, and what you can do to resolve it. I remember when I published this episode, I received a lot of emails from people telling me they followed her advice and it worked: their morning sickness went away!
2. Seeking Professional Help
Consulting with a mental health professional who specialises in anxiety disorders can provide tailored strategies for managing emetophobia. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy are common approaches that can gradually reduce the fear’s intensity. I can work with you on this using Head Trash Clearance (or one of the peeps I’ve trained in Fearless Birthing Or Head Trash Clearance)
3. Building a Support System
Communicate your fears with your healthcare provider and loved ones. Having an empathetic support network can alleviate feelings of isolation and provide a safety net during challenging moments.
4. Mindfulness and Self-Care
Engage in mindfulness techniques and self-care practices to manage anxiety. Techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, and relaxation exercises can be powerful tools in reducing the fear’s grip.
5. Clear the fear yourself
Use Head Trash Clearance to clear your fear. This is what I did and I was able to clear my fear in around 20 minutes. You can do this using the instructions I provide in my books Fearless Birthing and Clear Your Head Trash. Or you can use a fear clearance track. I’ve created a fear clearance track for this to help you.
Head over to to the Shop to check it out.
Emetophobia: Embracing Resilience
As you navigate the intricate path of pregnancy while contending with emetophobia, remember that your feelings are valid. Acknowledging your fears is an act of strength, and seeking help is a proactive step toward managing them.
With time, patience, and the right strategies, you can gradually reclaim a sense of control over your fears. Emetophobia might be a formidable opponent, but with the right tools and support, you can embrace motherhood with courage and confidence, even in the face of morning sickness.
Resources mentioned during the episode
1. Head Trash Clearance method
You can discover how to use the technique I share in this episode – Head Trash Clearance – in my books;
2. Fear Clearance Track for a Fear of Being Sick
If you don’t want to learn how to use Head Trash Clearance, and would prefer to just clear your fear, you can use this fear clearance audio track;
3. The reason you might be suffering from morning sickness
Episode Timestamps
00:00:34 Fear of vomit or being sick. Emetophobia program.
00:05:14 Fear of pregnancy and vomit can be overwhelming.
00:07:46 Traumatic memories can impact anxiety and worry.
00:13:52 Phobias make us do ridiculous things.
00:16:02 Tried head trash clearance to clear fears.
00:20:23 Get rid of phobias, manage anxieties instead.
00:22:22 Embrace absurdity, imagine fear as clown. Clear fear using own language.
00:25:33 Clear your fear of being sick.
Episode Transcript
Alexia [00:00:01]:
Hello, and welcome back to the Fear Free Childbirth Podcast. My name is Alexia Leachman. Thank you so much for joining me today. Now, on today’s show, I’m going to be talking all about the number one fear that affects everybody.
Alexia [00:00:34]:
Well, maybe not everybody, and it might not be the number one fear, but it definitely appears in a top three list if you just Google list of most common fears. And it often does actually feature number one, which is quite surprising, and that is the fear of vomit or the fear of being sick. So today could be quite a sickening episode for many of you if this is one of your fears.
Now, before I dive into that, though, I do have a couple of updates I want to share with you. For those of you that wish to join the next opening of my Tokophobia Clearance Group, then I have now opened the waitlist. So if this is something that you want to tackle in your life and you want to prepare for pregnancy or you’re thinking about starting a family, but right now you’re just too scared, then this could be just the group for you. This is a five week program where we dive into really kickstarting that fear clearance journey for you so that you can start making some headway and getting some wins in terms of feeling better, making a shift in terms of how you’re feeling. During this five week program, we get together every week to unpack the fears and conflicts that you’re wrestling with that are contributing to your Tokophobia, but also to clear some fears together.
Alexia [00:01:51]:
And then there is a Facebook group to support you on your fear clearance journey so you can get all the help, support, and guidance you need to help you to shift your Tokophobia for good. Now, some of the reasons that people join this group are, well, one, you want to get rid of your fear so you can think about planning for a family, or maybe you want to get pregnant. And right now, it just feels too terrifying for you. But also, maybe you’re even before that stage, and you want to be able to make a decision as to whether or not you want children. And at the moment, you’re not able to make that decision. This is something that a lot of women face with, where they’re just so scared that they don’t know whether the reason they’re saying no to kids is because of their fear of birth and pregnancy or because they simply don’t want kids. And that can be a very difficult decision to make when you are overrun with fear. So to be able to get rid of the fear, so that you can make a decision that you can trust in your gut, in your heart, and a decision that you can live with without regret, that could be a reason that you might want to join a group like this one.
Alexia [00:02:53]:
We had a lady like this and that was her reason for joining the group this time round. And she was able to in the last call that we had, she was able to say, oh my goodness, I had an experience where I saw another baby across the room, a new baby with their mum, and I just noticed myself feeling that, oh my goodness, I’m so glad that’s not me. And that feeling was very neutral, didn’t come with any emotion, didn’t come with any anxiety or fear. It was just a very clean, simple, peaceful thought that came to her. And she said that never ever come to her like that before. It would always fraught with anxiety and fear. So that’s just some of the reasons that you might want to join a group like the Tokophobia Fear Clearance Group. And if you do, then just pop along to the Fearfreechildbirth.com website where you will find the Tokophobia Clearance Group page.
Alexia [00:03:42]:
Just head to the Tokophobia menu and you’ll find it there. And then you can join the waitlist and there’ll be another group opening later on this year. There’s only limited spots on this group because we dive into a lot of detail and everyone gets a chance to share where they’re at during these group calls. And if there are too many people on the call, then those calls are just going to go on forever. So there are limited spots on this program.
Okay, so back to today’s show, which is all about the fear of vomit and emetophobia. Are you ready? Get your buckets at the ready. Here we go.
Alexia [00:04:20]:
So for you stomach sensitive souls, are you going to be able to take this? Because I want to dive into this topic that might leave you feeling a little bit queasy. Emetophobia is the name, the proper name for the fear of vomit or the fear of being sick. So you might want to grab a bucket for this episode as we dive into the ins and outs of the fear of being sick. Now, I know it sounds like I’m joking or not taking this seriously, but this is a very serious phobia. And in fact, in some lists of phobias, in terms of what are the most common or the most prevalent phobias, emetophobia often appears in the top three. And this is surprising. I know that when I found out about this, I was amazed that a fear of being sick or a fear of vomit was so prominent and so common. Now this can be hugely challenging for many people.
Alexia [00:05:14]:
But it’s particularly difficult for those who are maybe contemplating pregnancy because of course we’ve all heard of morning sickness. So imagine what the thought of pregnancy will be like when also you’re wrestling with this fear of being sick. And this can become even worse when there are those people that also suffer from emetophobia, the fear of pregnancy or giving birth, because not only are they facing the fear of being pregnant, what, being pregnant, the whole experience, but also they’ve got a fear of vomit going on, on top. So when you start compounding these fears and phobias together, life can get very, very overwhelming and difficult for some. So let’s rewind, let’s go back to the beginning and let’s just get clear on what is the fear of vomit? What is emetophobia? It’s not just somebody that doesn’t like throwing up because I dare say many of us don’t like throwing up. Who does? Right? Who likes experiencing that vomit coming through your throat and the aftertaste? Nobody likes that. But really the fear of vomit takes this much, much further. It really is a deep seated fear that can elicit anxiety and panic just at the thought of being sick or around others who might.
Alexia [00:06:32]:
And so this means, as I’ve already mentioned, that this fear can really extend to situations where illness is a possibility or there is the possibility of being sick, as I’ve mentioned pregnancy already. So nobody wants to be ill, nobody wants to be unwell or be sick in terms of having an illness. But when there’s a possibility of vomiting taking place, then this really does accelerate the panic and the anxiety that people might be feeling around that. So where does it come from? How does one develop emetophobia? Well, the roots of it can often be traced back to a personal experience that you’ve had around vomiting or people vomiting. It’s not always your own personal experience of it and often you might think, well, I’ve not really had a trauma around that. But remember, a trauma isn’t always this hugely scary event that takes place. It can often be just an unpleasant experience, but you just can’t shake it, you always remember it. And so what usually happens with these situations is you have an emotional trace that is stuck within your system.
Alexia [00:07:46]:
So you might always be able to remember that time that you were sick and then so and so was watching and it was at school, it was really embarrassing or whatever was going on and that’s a memory that you will never forget. So that is likely to be a trauma for you if it’s one of these experiences that you can always recall in Technicolor Glory and you can remember all the details and it’s a story that maybe you like to tell that it’s because it is so clear in your mind and it’s so marked in your experience that maybe it’s not a dinner party story, but it’s certainly one that you’re able to recall easily. Because the details are so clear, because the emotional intensity has meant that you’re still carrying the memories very clearly within you. So some of these memories could be maybe when you were a child and you had a really bad stomach bug or you were present and witnessing somebody else who was really, really ill. So I know people, for example, who, when they were kids, their parents were very, very ill and were always being sick for whatever reason. And so just seeing a mother or a father being ill like that could be enough to create this fear within you. And particularly when it comes to witnessing your mother or your father being ill, then that’s going to be tied into some other aspects that are really going to make that a more anxious situation for you, because these are your caregivers. And so if you’re seeing them in distress, you’re seeing them being ill like that, then as a child, there’s going to be a part of you that’s going to be worrying about your own safety and who’s going to look after you.
Alexia [00:09:26]:
So this is really going to make that situation a lot more likely to be a traumatic one for you. Now, I just want to share how I came to have my own fear of vomit. And I didn’t realise that I had this fear until my aunt highlighted it to me. And so it’s not always something that you will pick up in childhood, because this was something that I picked up as a result of being a mother. And so it was my children being sick that created that trauma within me. So for me, this came about when I was on a car journey. So my other half at the time, he was working away and it was when my youngest was around nine months old. And so there was one weekend in January, we went to visit him and it was a really long drive.
Alexia [00:10:12]:
Well, it was for me, it was like a four hour drive and it was January weather, which in the UK was lashing rain, really bad rain, and obviously early nights as well. So it was getting dark at around 04:00 and I was hitting what is known as the road to hell in the UK, which is the M 25. It’s the periphery road that goes all around London and it’s always really caught, it’s got always roadworks and it’s always got really bad traffic on and I was hitting it on a Friday evening. So the worst time ever to hit the M 25 was when I was hitting it and it was really bad rain and there were roadworks. So I was driving through a part of the M 25 where I had a speed limit imposed of 50 miles an hour and I was just stuck bumper to bumper, nowhere to go, just had to just work, just sit tight and go through this roadwork section, which seemed to be going on for miles and miles. And in the middle of all that, my baby, my nine month old, started to be sick. Now, one of the things that she did at the time was soon after a feed, she would sometimes bring up her feed. And so I hit the roadworks just as she was now bringing up her feed, but I was stuck in the front seat as a driver on my own, and she was in the back, in her car seat.
Alexia [00:11:31]:
And so her being sick in the back, where I couldn’t come and help her, I couldn’t support her, I couldn’t wipe her clean. She was sitting in the front and all I could hear, because I couldn’t look round all the time because I had to keep an eye on the road, all I could hear was my baby being sick in the back. And my head, it was like, oh, my God, she’s choking. Oh, my God, this is a nightmare. It’s going all over the car seats. It’s going on the back of the passenger seat on the front, and I had fabric car seats. So I was just imagining just a nightmare unfolding in the back of the car. But worse is that, what if she was choking, I couldn’t do anything about it.
Alexia [00:12:09]:
What was I going to do? Stop the car in the middle of a motorway in the rain and the dark, putting us both in danger? So I was trapped in that situation and I couldn’t do anything about it. I just had to kind of take it. And when there’s a situation where you feel trapped or you have no control, this is really something that can really embed a trauma, because it’s this feeling that you can’t change your situation, you can’t get out of it, that really helps to embed a trauma. So my situation had trauma written all over it, really looking back. And so I was stuck in the car and I had to sit there, and then the whole car stank of vomit and I had to wait until I reached a moment where I could actually get off the motorway and deal with the situation. So for about half an hour or so, I was stuck with this situation. I mean, obviously she was okay and everything was fine, but this was an event that was the beginning of my own fear of vomit. But again, I didn’t realise that I had this fear on the back of that experience.
Alexia [00:13:06]:
But it did teach me that every car journey we had after that, I would be super, super stressed. And so any journey longer than half an hour, which was usually the lag between feeding and her bringing it up, I’d get really, really stressed about it. And then baby number two came along and it continued because I’d just think oh, my God. I’ve got two to deal with. Because I remember when I was a kid, I would always be sick in the car on long journeys. And that happened up until I was maybe seven or eight, I don’t know. And so I was just imagining that for the next eight years of my life, every car journey, we couldn’t go more than an hour away from home because I was going to have to starve the children before getting in the car so that they couldn’t be sick. These ridiculous situations help me not have to confront vomit.
Alexia [00:13:52]:
And if we did have a long journey, then we’d have to stop all the time, like, every hour or so, just to and again in my head, it’s like, well, give them some fresh air, make sure they kind of in my head, I think I was resetting the timer. If we stop the car now, then we’ve got another half hour before they’re likely to be sick. And I don’t know where this logic came from, because it’s just ridiculous, right? But this is what phobias look like. We do things that, to other people, just look completely ridiculous. And you look a little bit crazy because you’re going to all these lengths to avoid a situation, to try and manage a situation, try and control a situation that may be not controllable. And it’s almost a little bit obsessive, really. My situation with my kids came to a little bit of a head once when I was going on holiday with both the kids and my French aunt who’d come over from France, and we were driving from Birmingham in the UK to West Wales. So for those of you that aren’t from the UK, that’s quite a long drive in UK terms, because obviously in the UK we’re not used to big long drives because the island is quite small, especially compared to the US, right? So this drive in the UK is probably like a five, six hour drive, but for us, on this occasion, turned into a seven plus hour drive, because I had to stop all the time just so the kids could have their fresh air and not be sick.
Alexia [00:15:14]:
So I was entirely responsible for this drive being really, really long and not that great. And so when it came to the return journey, my aunt, who is actually a very wise lady, she said to me that all of this vomiting was the kids responding to my fear of them vomiting. And I was like, Are you crazy? Like, what have I got to do with this? I’m just trying to manage this situation. This is just something that the universe has given me. It’s not my fault. How can it be my fault? And she was quite stern with me about it and said, no, this is your stuff. You are creating the anxiety, you are creating this and they’re responding to you. I’m not getting in that car until you heal this, because this is ridiculous.
Alexia [00:16:02]:
So it took me a while to just sit with that and go, okay, thanks for that. Let me just think about that. And I thought, well, what have I got to lose? It’ll take me, what, 10-15 minutes to clear this using head trash clearance, so I might as well if it works, then if it is me and it works, then brilliant. Then why would I not want to do this? So that’s what I did. I relented eventually and took on her recommendation, and I found a quiet spot, and I used head trash clearance to clear my fear of vomit and my fear of my kids being sick in the car. So this took me about 20 minutes. And what happened as a result of that was quite mind boggling, really. We then set off on our seven hour drive home, and this journey was like no other journey I’d done with my kids.
Alexia [00:16:55]:
For a start, both of them just fell asleep immediately as we left where we were leaving, and then they did not wake up at all throughout the whole journey. And so the journey, as it transpired, wasn’t a seven plus hour journey. It was more like a five, like four to five hour journey. But we were so like, oh, my God, they’re sleeping. They’re sleeping. Let’s not stop the car. We can’t stop the car because they’ll wake up, so we better just let’s just keep going. And we ended up doing the whole journey without stopping.
Alexia [00:17:25]:
Both of us were so desperate for a pee by the time we got there, desperate for a drink, desperate for food, for lunch, anything. We were just ready to stop the car. But they slept the whole way. And I’d never, ever experienced that. I mean, for two kids to be doing that for over 5 hours, it was just completely unheard of. And since then, they hadn’t been they’ve not really been sick in the car. She told me, didn’t she? My aunt, she told me. That was absolutely my fear of vomit.
Alexia [00:17:54]:
And when I think back to that experience I had on the M 25, it absolutely was a trauma, and that was the root trauma of my own fear of vomit. And of course, my fear wasn’t about me being sick. That’s, I think, where the confusion in my own head would have come from. It was around other people being sick. So I never really if somebody had said to me, have you got a fear of vomit? I would have gone, no, of course I’m fine if I have to be sick, it’s not a problem. But I wasn’t fine if my kids had to be sick. So you see, if you do have a fear of vomit or a fear of being sick, this doesn’t have to be something that you have to keep with you all the time. It is something you can get rid of.
Alexia [00:18:33]:
Now of course, we’re all different. So let me just share with you some of the other things that you can do to help you to conquer this fear of emetophobia. I hope I’m saying it right now. I think the first thing that is useful to do is really to just become knowledgeable about it, understand what’s going on, maybe take some time to understand the science behind some of the stomach related escapades that are going on. Because the more you understand something, the less intimidating they become. Again. If you’re pregnant and you’re facing morning sickness, then understand the physiological reasons behind morning sickness. Because once you understand, you can then particularly in the context of pregnancy, sometimes it is part of a healthy pregnancy.
Alexia [00:19:20]:
And when you understand how morning sickness can feature as part of a healthy pregnancy, you might be able to reframe that fear for yourself. Now, I have done a podcast for those that are suffering from morning sickness. I did a podcast on my fear free childbirth podcast, sharing what some of the reasons could be why there’s morning sickness occurring. And so I’ll be putting a link in the show notes for this episode so you can go and dig in to that other episode I did, because the advice that I shared, or my guest, my guest Sharan shared during that episode around how you can conquer morning sickness and therefore not vomit, not be sick during your pregnancy. After that podcast episode, I had lots of emails from women saying oh, I did that, I tried that and it totally worked. So I will be putting a link in the show notes for this episode. Now, the other thing that I think is also worth considering is getting help, getting professional help. So speak to a health professional who can help you with anxiety disorders and help you to find ways of managing the phobia or indeed getting rid of it.
Alexia [00:20:23]:
I’m more about getting rid of stuff. I’m not really interested in managing a phobia when for me it’s so easy to get rid of a phobia. But I do realise that some people prefer to manage anxieties and phobias. They’re not ready necessarily to eliminate anxiety and phobia. So if managing your phobia, managing your anxiety is more down your street, then absolutely seek the help of a mental health professional that can do that for you, help you, give you some tailored strategies around managing the phobia. Apparently CBT can help, exposure therapy can help to reduce the intensity of the fear. And of course, if you do want to find somebody that works with head trash clearance, myself included, and those that I train or indeed fearless birthing, if you want to work with somebody on your pregnancy journey and getting rid of your birth fears, then you can eliminate that phobia with head trash clearance. The other thing I’ll say if you’re pregnant is just to make sure that those people around you, your support team, know about your fear, so they can support you if anything happens and that there’s vomiting going on, they’re prepared and they can help to shield you from it or whatever is going on.
Alexia [00:21:35]:
They can be there for you. If people know what you’re experiencing, they can much better support you. Now, you can also look at self care. You look at mindfulness techniques or any other practices that you can help that maybe you use as part of managing your own anxiety. Maybe you can use some of those things to help you to manage your emetophobia as well. Now, the other thing which I think is really worth doing, which might not be for everyone, but it’s about laughing at your fear. Because if we can bring humour to our mental health challenges, to our emotional health challenges, that can really help us to heal and reframe what we’re feeling in a way that maybe feels less threatening, less negative. So perhaps humour could be a really good one for you.
Alexia [00:22:22]:
You could maybe embrace the absurdity of this fear and give your fear a ridiculous name like Sir Gagalot, for example, and then imagine it in a clown costume and suddenly your fear is a lot harder to take seriously. And you’ve already started that process of cutting those emotional cords to this fear that you’re holding onto, and it becomes much more easy to release it. And of course, the final thing you can do is just clear this fear yourself, just as I did. So I use Head Trash clearance to clear this fear, and I share how you can use this in both of my books, Clear Your Head Trash and Fearless Birthing. And so everything, all the instructions are in the book. You just take what I’ve shared and you decide what it is that you want to clear. So what do I mean when I say you have to decide what it is that you want to clear? Well, it’s really about the language because we need to be using the language that resonates for you when you’re clearing a fear like this. So when you think about this, do you use the word vomit or do you use the word being sick or do you use them interchangeably? So you need to get clear on this, or is there another word that you use? I know in the UK I grew up and there was a word that we used all the time called chundering.
Alexia [00:23:40]:
So chundering, it might be that you think about vomiting as chundering, in which case, use that, use vomit, use being sick, use chucking up, I don’t know, whatever you want to use. It’s got to be the language that you use in your head that is part of your own lexicon. So decide what that is and maybe do a mishmash of all of those terms because maybe you use a lot of those terms. So just use a mishmash of them and then just make sure that that’s what you insert into the head trash clearance mantras. So it could be that you have one clearance that’s all about the act of being sick or vomiting or chundering or chucking up or whatever is, whatever that is for you. But then there could be some other clearances that you might want to consider. Because it could be that while you’re vomiting and while you’re being sick, what you don’t like about that situation, maybe it’s the taste and the smell. Maybe it’s how you look.
Alexia [00:24:31]:
Maybe you think you look like a real idiot, vomiting at the side of the road or whatever’s going on in your hair and looking all red and tearful. And so maybe it’s about how you look. Maybe it’s because you don’t like the loss of control that’s going on around that experience and how you don’t know when it’s going to stop. Why are you doing this? What’s going on? I don’t have the answers. So not being in control could also be a good clearance to do as well. Maybe you don’t like the idea that you’re being humiliated or you’re humiliating yourself or making yourself look silly. So again, humiliation or looking silly or whatever that thing is that you’re worried about, those would be also very useful to consider in terms of clearances. And so if you’re not sure, a good question to ask yourself is this: what is it about being sick that I hate? Or what is it about being sick that makes me uncomfortable? And the answer to that question is probably the clearance that you need to do.
Alexia [00:25:33]:
So just think about that as much as you can. Obviously, when you have a fear of something, it can be hard to think about something. But if you start off with the fear of being sick clearance and then ask that question of yourself and see what comes up, and if all of that sounds like way too much effort, then I have got you covered because I have created a fear clearance track for this phobia. So if you want to head over to the shop where you can find the fear clearance track for a fear of being sick or a fear of vomiting, and then all you have to do is just listen to me doing all of that stuff, and then you just clear it by listening so much easier all round. So I just want to wrap up here around this phobia, this fear. If you have got this fear, then look at it as a gift. This is an opportunity for you to heal something within yourself. This is an opportunity for you to let go of this fear.
Alexia [00:26:25]:
Even though it might be a formidable opponent, it’s not entirely invincible. You can get rid of it with a little bit of knowledge, maybe some therapy or some professional support, little bit of humour, maybe some exposure therapy. Maybe doing a clearance, but you can wrestle back control over this fear for yourself so that you are not the one that’s being controlled by it. Because with the right tools and the right support, you can absolutely embrace life and not be shied into a corner by a fear of vomit or a fear of being sick. Well, I hope that was an insightful episode for you and that you now have hope if maybe emetophobia or a fear of vomit is something that you struggle with. And if you decide to give the fear clearance, track a go. I’d love to hear how you get on. Okay, until next time.
Alexia [00:27:17]:
Bye for now.
Alexia supports families planning pregnancy and birth. She helps them to overcome their fears and feel calm and confident about birth and pregnancy.
Alexia also trains birth professionals in the Fearless Birthing, a unique approach to birth preparation that is ideal for those who have fears around birth.
- Erin’s Tokophobia Healing Journey - 6th March 2024
- How Unhealed Tokophobia Can Affect You In Unexpected Ways - 27th February 2024
- Overcoming Birth Trauma: Heather’s Journey to Positive Birth - 14th December 2023
