Tipi Method: Free Yourself From Your Fears With 6 Simple Steps!
“Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.” — Judy Blume
What would your life be like if you could get rid of those fears that invade and paralyze you? Have you ever heard of the Tipi method? This acronym, which stands for “sensory identification technique for unconscious fears”, is also the name Luc Nicon gave to his association to promote emotional regulation.
A technique that could help you live in the present moment. In our daily lives, we are confronted with situations that provoke emotions of fear, anxiety or anger that exhaust our energy. While we could use it for much more fulfilling activities, we find ourselves constantly mobilizing it to develop avoidance strategies. We don’t want to be confronted with these negative emotions that we simply don’t want to experience.
What if you could overcome these anxieties? Discover how this method of emotional regulation can teach you to live your emotions and free yourself from your fears.
What is the Tipi method?
“The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” — Nelson Mandela
The origin of the Tipi method
What is emotional regulation? Very simply, it consists of focusing on the sensations felt in the body during an unpleasant emotion. It is not a matter of analyzing this feeling but of welcoming it, of letting it invade you. We leave the mind aside for a moment and we reconnect to the sensory, to our body. On average, after 20 to 30 seconds you calm down and overcome the blockage you were facing. How did Luc Nicon come to this conclusion?
Specialized in pedagogy and behavioral communication, Luc Nicon is passionate about learning issues. He noticed that some people are resistant to conventional learning techniques. This is not due to a lack of willpower, far from it, but to an emotional block. He then looks for ways to overcome this blockage. What causes it? It is fear that creates and maintains these emotional knots.
First, he moves towards understanding emotions. He asks the following question to people who are blocked: “What makes you afraid? This question allows some introspection in his interlocutors and even has convincing results but he considers it too random.
Disconcerted by a person who is truly blocked by an apparently harmless action, he then asks: “What is it doing in your body? Here he arrives at the beginnings of emotional regulation. He no longer asks the person in difficulty to analyze his emotions but to reconnect with his physical sensations. The person questioned then delivers physical sensations felt typical of anguish:
- The impression of suffocating
- Palpitations
- Tremors
- The famous knot in the stomach
- Sensations of tension in the whole body
Then, as the list goes on, the person naturally calms down. They feel ready to overcome the obstacle that blocked them a few seconds before.
Impressed and convinced of the merits of emotional regulation, Luc Nicon created the Tipi association in 2003 to promote this simple technique that is accessible to all. Through this association, he conducts voluntary training sessions open to both individuals and interested health professionals. During these short courses, participants learn to regulate their emotions in a situation and in complete autonomy.
Who is emotional regulation for?
For everyone! It is not reserved for the very anxious but for everyone, there is no hierarchy in fears.
Do you have a phobia of driving and this is an obstacle to your daily life? However, nothing would make you happier than to be able to drive your car again, without fear. Expressing yourself in public is an absolute nightmare, so you refuse all the public appearances that are offered to you. It is frustrating because you dream of making your voice heard on this subject that is so dear to your heart. All this because you prefer to avoid being confronted with the intense and unpleasant emotion that you will experience during this experience. This is where the emotional regulation technique comes in.
When you experience an intense emotion, your intellect will have the reflex to look for the solution that it identifies as the fastest. More often than not, we find that this can be to flee the situation. In a society where we are taught that the intellect is a supreme value, where sensitivity and strong emotions, whether positive or negative, are frowned upon, it can be difficult to reconnect with them. The dialogue between the intellect and the senses is however essential. Moreover, our behaviors often betray our feelings long before we are able to verbalize them.
There are two types of approaches to this emotional harmonization: a delayed one and another one at the moment of the emotion.
The delayed technique is an approach where the person is accompanied by a professional. The professional helps the person to relive the emotion caused by the unpleasant or anxiety-provoking situation. By revisiting the situation, the professional helps the person to bring back the emotional reaction and the associated physical sensations. Then, he accompanies him to help him activate the emotional regulation.
The second regulation technique is the one that is carried out in the moment, when the emotion is experienced. This is the one that Luc Nicon wishes to democratize for the greatest number of people. Accessible and simple, emotional regulation is carried out independently when the person feels the need. No matter what the setting, whether professional or family, the person in emotional difficulty will have this tool that he or she can activate to quickly regulate his or her emotions.
Whatever the approach, it is estimated that it takes between 5 and 10 regulations to feel a palpable change and to overcome the blockages encountered. And once these blocks are lifted, you no longer anticipate problematic situations: you live in the present moment.
The 6 steps of this emotional regulation strategy
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
The method promoted by Tipi in its practical guide consists of 6 steps. Quick, isn’t it? As you can see, many everyday situations could be defused by using it. Let’s take a closer look at the steps of emotional regulation by taking the example of a fear of the elevator.
1. You feel an unpleasant emotion
This time, you have no choice: in order to go up to the 46th floor, you will have to take the elevator. A particularly anxiety-provoking situation for you. It generates a whole range of unpleasant emotions: fear, anger against yourself… It also translates into behaviors: a certain agitation, which you try to hide. This is accompanied by physical sensations which, like your emotion, are unpleasant.
You have the feeling of being blocked, of suffocating. In short, you feel uncomfortable, close to losing your means. This considerable expenditure of energy is tiring and you think of solutions: the intellect analyses and takes over. On the contrary, rather than running away from this emotion, it is important that you experience it.
2. Close your eyes
This allows you to focus on yourself and ignore external stimuli. You don’t have to pay attention to the lights on the elevator, to estimate how much time is left before you get to that famous floor. By closing your eyes, you are taking the first step towards accepting that you are experiencing this emotion. And this is very important.
3. Pay attention to the physical sensations in your body
It is not a question of analyzing the deep emotion that runs through you, but rather of paying attention to your body. This is the moment to give full space to the sensory. What do you feel in your body when you are in this elevator? Do you feel sick to your stomach? Do you have difficulty breathing? Is your back full of tension? Being interested in your physical sensations during this experience has a double interest.
By focusing on your physical sensations, your mind is no longer entirely devoted to stress and the search for a solution. You bring your attention back to your body and to the present moment. Through practice, you also teach your mind that the best solution to an unpleasant emotion is emotional regulation rather than escape.
4. Let these sensations evolve, transform themselves
As you describe how you feel in your body about this event, you will notice that your sensations change. They will become more and more prominent. Some sensations become more present than others. Some disappear more quickly than you expected.
5. Let it happen, without control, without preconceptions
The important thing is to welcome all your feelings without judgment. You must be a spectator of your sensations. Do not try to hinder them. Once again, do not analyze what you feel. In a word… let go! Live it to the fullest. This exercise pushes you to ground yourself in the present moment. You really learn to harmonize the balance between the intellect and the senses in managing these emotions.
6. To the point of appeasement
At the end of this process, the feelings fade away and you feel calmed. It is noted that the average time to return to a calm mind, a state before the emotion, is between 10 to 30 seconds. This time is specific to each person, some people subject to emotional blockages have found durations as different as 1 min… or 8 seconds! For the majority of them, with practice, they have overcome the blockage they were facing. What about you? Have you overcome your fear of the elevator?
Without those big or small fears that populate our daily lives, you free up mental space and energy to experience the things you want to experience. As in many areas of our lives, the key to successful emotional regulation is to make it a habit. Apply the 6 steps of emotional regulation whenever you feel the need.
You will soon realize that you are gradually freeing yourself from your emotional blocks. Tempted? Then, the next time you are faced with an unpleasant situation at work or at home, you will have the powerful tool of emotional regulation at your disposal. It won’t cost you much to try it, except… 30 seconds of your time!
