“Phobias and excessive emotional reactions: A brain bug that you can easily do something about…”

In this podcast I speak with Ienke Keijzer. Through Teams, I interview Ienke, a Dutch woman who lives and works in Montpellier, in the South of France. In a nice conversation she tells me about her life, passions and life vision. 

Ienke is one of the ladies who gave me positive feedback during my extensive research into all aspects of the ideal bralette. 

In the conversation I get to meet a female specialist who clearly understands her profession, and what’s more, who seems to love life and tries to make the most out of it. 

Ienke is a Neuro Psycho Practitioner. She has written a book called ‘Emotional cleansing NEMO, how to get rid of excessive emotional reactivities and phobias’. In this book she expresses her views on phobias and all that emotional overreacting we can’t seem to do anything about. She explains why we have phobias, what happens in the brain and, most importantly, how to get rid of them. 

Ienke says that the emotional overreacting is a kind of brain bug and that it is actually very easy to get rid of this oh so annoying bug. NEMO is a simple, fast and super-efficient tool. It is used by therapists and coaches in the broadest sense of the word, but psychiatrists, psychologists and more and more general practitioners also use the technique with their patients. They integrate the technique into their personal practice, and that’s really fantastic, because if you master the tool, it is so easy to do so much good, so quickly. 

In addition to writing books and giving courses to therapists and practitioners, she also accompanies people on her sailboat, out of the idea: ‘Let the sea let you free’. Ienke is a passionate sailor and she says: “It is incredible to what extent therapy at sea can create the right impact on people. The sea is full of metaphors useful for personal development, such as to take the helm of your own life in hand, to adjust the sails to the blowing winds, and the need to throw excess ballast overboard.” In short, Ienke loves to accompany people to become the captain of their own happiness. Super interesting. 

I believe that every person is unique in his or her own way and that it’s the trick to stay close to yourself. Ienke agrees and says: “For me, inner strength means that you are very aware of getting to know yourself more and more, of getting closer and closer to your real self. I often compare it to an artichoke, where you take off the leaves one by one to finally end up at the deep core. On the other hand, be aware that becoming yourself is not always easy. To change generally means looking yourself deeply in the eye and confront the raw points. It also often means a change in the people around you. But in the end, even though it’s not always comfortable, it’s oh so great to step by step, and sometimes by leaps and bounds, get closer and closer to yourself and live the life you want to live, no matter what.” 

I personally also very much believe that the closer you get to yourself, the stronger you are. It is the power of being yourself and this is called congruence. 

My motto: Leading yourself, leading others and leading the business. You are truly congruent if your behaviour matches with who you are, with who you truly are. Unfortunately, this is not (yet) the case for most of us, and often our behaviour and non-verbal communication do not correspond to who we really are. Usually this goes “well” for a while because in the beginning we are not aware of it, or because we think that we can’t do otherwise. Realizing that our behaviour often doesn’t match with who we actually are can be quite a confrontation, for ourselves as well as for the people around us who don’t know us otherwise than with this behaviour we have been showing for years. 

Ienke intervenes and says: “Yes, this is exactly where the emotional cleansing can be useful NEMO. For example, if you take jealousy, the fact of not being able to say no, claustrophobia, the fear of flying, or going crazy when your partner throws his or her socks on the floor every day, this is not who we really are, this is not how we want to be, and this is most of the time definitely not how we want to react. And even though we rationally know that those socks on the floor are not that much of a problem, even though we know we don’t need to be that jealous, we still emotionally overreact and we can’t seem to do anything about it, it overwhelms us. It is as if the emotional response cursor were stuck somewhere above or below, but definitely not on the right place. And this makes us emotionally over or underreact.

Of course, in certain cases it is good to go crazy or to be jealous, emotions are good. But in the case of excessive emotional behaviour, in the case of phobias, that is absolutely not the case. Emotional overreacting shows that we need to put the cursor back in its normal place so to be able to react properly to what is going on, to a current situation. After getting rid of the phobia or of any other excessive emotional reactivity with NEMO we won’t go out of our mind at any moment again, except if it is necessary or logic. Of course, we will still be jealous every now and then, but only when it is really necessary or logic, and in the same way, we might still notice those socks on the floor and not be very happy about it, but we will just see them as socks on the floor, and not as a red cloth for a bull in the arena that will make us explode.” 

So, what about you? Are there any situations where you emotionally overreact? Do you have phobias? Do you have arachnophobia and go crazy and scream and jump on chairs when you get to see that small spider? Are you unable to speak in public? Do you have a fear of flying and do you either not take the plane at all or sweat carrots and have a really hard time during the flight? If so, then know that reacting this way is disproportionate and that you absolutely do not have to react like this. This emotional overreacting is something that happens in the brain, something that prevents us from living a serein and relaxed life. And the good news is that it’s something you can easily do something about! Ienke describes the entire process in a very clear and orderly way in her book Emotional cleansing NEMO, in which you will also find the entire protocol to master the technique. 

In short: I had a lovely time interviewing Ienke and I highly recommend NEMO Read the book and let’s get started! By doing so you will more and more become the person you really are, reacting in a appropriate way to certain situations that until now bother you and prevent you from being yourself, your real self. NEMO can really help you to lead a nice life. I think this is all really super interesting, and I hope you find that too. Happy listening!