By Christopher Paul Jones, Harley Street phobia expert and author of ‘Face your Fears – 7 steps to conquering phobias and anxiety’
We all know that Christmas carries its fair share of stress—the preparation, the rushing around, the family dynamics—but for some people, it goes far deeper than being ‘a bit overwhelmed’. For certain individuals, Christmas itself can trigger a full phobic response, no different from a fear of public speaking, flying, or spiders. It even has a name, Christougenniatikophobia.
Some phobias around Christmas are quite straightforward once you explain them. For example, if you experience agoraphobia, all those crowded high streets and packed shops can easily trigger panic. If social anxiety is part of your experience, then being expected to socialise, host or perform “festive cheer” on cue can feel overwhelming.
Then there are the phobias tied to memory. If someone went through something traumatic around Christmas—such as losing a parent or experiencing a difficult breakup—the sights, sounds and even smells of Christmas can bring back a wave of emotion. Carol music, a certain decoration, or even the switch to winter lighting can retrigger that old emotional imprint.
To someone who hasn’t lived it, these fears might seem quirky or easy to joke about, but for the person dealing with them, the fear is just as real as any other phobia and no less valid than a fear of heights or snakes. And once you dig below the surface, the cause usually makes perfect sense.
Trouble with tinsel
I once treated a woman named Hannah who had a very real fear of tinsel. She had avoided Christmas for years. When we explored the root cause, it turned out that one Christmas when she was young, she had been playing with her cousins and, as part of a game, they wrapped her up in tinsel. At one point the tinsel slipped across her mouth, tightened, and she couldn’t catch her breath. She panicked and her brain created a conditioned response: tinsel became linked with danger.
This idea of a conditioned response isn’t new. It was demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov, who ran the famous experiment where he rang a bell every time he fed a dog. Eventually, the dog began salivating at the sound of the bell, even when no food arrived. The bell itself had nothing to do with food, but because the two happened together enough times, the dog’s brain linked them.
That is exactly how phobias form. Your brain pairs a moment of fear with whatever happened to be around you at the time, a sound, a smell, a location, an object, and once that pairing is made, your body reacts automatically long after the threat is gone.
So, the first step in helping someone let go of a phobia is to find that original pairing, the conditioning moment in the past that taught the brain that this equals danger. If you are dealing with a Christmas phobia, or any other fear for that matter, that is always where the process begins. Once we identify that moment, we can start to change the way the brain responds to it.
When I help someone let go of a phobia, I use seven key steps that allow the mind to rewrite those old fear patterns and replace them with a calmer, more confident response.
Step 1: Recognise what you are really afraid of
The first step is to get clear. A lot of people think they’re afraid of the obvious thing—like Hannah’s fear of tinsel—but it’s usually what’s behind it that matters. For example, if we had only focused on the tinsel itself and not the underlying fear of choking, we wouldn’t have gotten very far. So, the key is precision. Let go of the “why” questions, which can lead to excuses, and instead ask yourself a few simple “what” and “when” questions. For instance, when did I first start feeling this way? What was happening at the time? And in the present, what tends to trigger this feeling now? Once you know that, you’ve got the real target in focus, and you can actually start working on it.
Step 2: Relax the conscious mind
Once you have identified the real fear, the next step is to help your body shift from the sympathetic state, which is the fight, flight or freeze response, into the parasympathetic state, which is calmer and more relaxed. Emotions are not always logical, and trying to rationalise them can sometimes keep you stuck in your head. There are many ways to calm the mind and body, from hypnotherapy to mindfulness and meditation. One of the simplest and quickest ways, however, is to change your breathing.
Quick technique: Square Breathing
Breathe in for a count of four, hold for four, breathe out for four, and hold again for four. Repeating this helps your body move into a calmer state, making it much easier for your mind to shift as well.
Step 3: Reward (what need is this phobia meeting)
Everything we do meets a need on some level, even if it is not immediately obvious or particularly logical. Emotions are not always rational, and often there is what we call in psychology a ‘secondary gain’, a hidden reward the subconscious is holding onto.
In the context of a Christmas phobia, that secondary gain might be something like a sense of safety, a way to avoid overwhelming situations, or even a form of self-protection that developed long ago.
So, ask yourself, what need is this fear meeting? Trust the first answer that comes up, even if it does not seem to make logical sense at first. Then consider, is there a better way to meet that need, whether it is protection, a sense of control, or feeling prepared, in a more positive way?
By gently challenging these subconscious beliefs, it becomes much easier to let go of the fear and move forward.
Step 4: Recipe (deconstructing your strategy)
When we look at it closely, every emotion we experience whether it is happiness, sadness, or a phobia like a fear of Christmas, runs on an internal recipe. It is like a movie playing in your mind, or a set of ingredients that come together in a specific order. What you picture in your mind, what you say to yourself, what you are thinking about, what you believe, how you feel in your body, and even how you carry yourself all form part of that sequence.
Once you become aware of that internal strategy, you can start to change it. Think of changing the scenes of a movie or swapping out ingredients in a recipe.
This is where you can begin to experiment. Imagine taking the image that triggers fear and turning it black and white. Notice the voice that says it will all go wrong and imagine it sounding like Mickey Mouse. Picture the thing you are afraid of wearing a big floppy wig, and imagine yourself towering above it. How different does it feel from that place
By altering the pictures, the sounds, the beliefs, the body posture, and all the other ingredients in the sequence, you can interrupt the old pattern and create a new, more empowering response.
Step 5: Release (letting go of the past)
Christmas fear often echoes old experiences, sometimes small, sometimes significant. This step is about releasing the emotional imprint from the past. In other words, we gently find those old triggers and help the mind let them go.
One simple technique is to cross your arms and gently rub them up and down, almost as if you’re giving yourself a comforting hug. This kind of nurturing touch can help release those old emotional charges. By revisiting those past triggers in a calm, self-soothed state, you naturally reduce their intensity and allow yourself to let go.
Step 6: Recondition (creating a positive anchor)
As we mentioned at the start, a phobia is essentially an old negative conditioned response—a Pavlovian response. What many people don’t realise is that you can create your own positive version of that – a sort of magic button to feel good on cue.
Think of a time when you felt truly calm or joyful. At the peak of that feeling, gently squeeze your thumb and forefinger together. Repeat this with a few positive memories, using the same gesture each time. Once you’ve done this a few times, you’ve created a reliable anchor.
When those old Christmas fears start creeping in, just press that anchor. Done right, and with strong positive emotions conditioned into it, this new anchor can reduce or even override those old Christmas-related fears.
Step 7: Realise (a positive future)
A lot of people feed their fear by mentally rehearsing a negative future that hasn’t even happened yet. The mind doesn’t distinguish between what’s imagined and what’s real, so this only fuels the fear. Now that you’ve reconditioned the past, the key is to focus on what you do want in the future. Imagine a bright, vivid picture of yourself feeling confident and at ease. Rehearse that positive future in your mind over and over, stepping into it and feeling those good emotions. The more you focus on this positive image, the more you’ll naturally move towards it, leaving the old fear behind.
So, if you’ve had a tough time with the holidays, just remember you’ve got a few new approaches you can try. You might find you can actually have a happy, joyful Christmas in a way you haven’t before. Here’s to enjoying the season in a new, uplifting way and having a truly merry holiday season!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher Paul Jones is a leading Harley Street phobia expert and author of ‘Face your Fears’. Having overcome his own phobias, and conducted 20+ years of research across Europe, North America and Asia, Christopher has developed an integrated approach combining mainstream psychology with cutting edge techniques: The Integrated Change System™. The system aims to change the mind’s danger response and leave people free and happy to enjoy things they once found terrifying. A fear, anxiety or phobia can be cured in as little as a session. Christopher’s clients come from all over the world and include Hollywood actors and Oscar nominees, models, musicians, presenters and celebrities. His latest book ‘Face your Fears’ has been translated into multiple languages. www.christopherpauljones.com
See Christopher in action curing a spider phobia – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rohLaguMSjI
Book “Face Your Fears”: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Face-Your-Fears-Conquering-Phobias/dp/1789295327
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