Why was this woman afraid of Simon Cowell?
It might not seem like it, but for some phobias can consume a person's life, paralysing them from living fully and in the present moment.
Nelson Mandela once said, "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."
As inspiring as that sounds, fears have a way of ruling your life in unexpected ways. While finding the root cause behind your fear or phobia might be easier said than done, the benefits can be freeing.
For one woman, it was an unresolved trauma from her past that caused her to develop a strange phobia about TV personality and businessman, Simon Cowell.
It sounded like a joke to Michelle Hall's family and many others, but Hall would physically become disturbed each time she saw an image of Simon Cowell.
Hall appeared on ITV's 'This Morning' show in 2014 to discuss her strange phobia and chatted to therapists, Eva and Nik Speakman.
After delving into her past, the therapists found that Hall was living through something that traumatised her as a child. The Mirror said, "It was a miraculous turnaround for Michelle as she shuddered at the sight of the star at the show's beginning - but gladly shook hands and giggled with several men in Cowell masks just an hour later."
The phobia started around 2004 when Hall had lost her father. Eva said, "When Michelle got told off by her dad as a little girl, he’d look at her in a certain way and she’d think, ‘Oh God, I’d better leave the room or I’m gonna be in trouble.’ And that was simply what it was. It was a memory from childhood.”
Watch the video from the interview on YouTube.
And here's a video of how she responded to Simon Cowell lookalikes after facing her past fears, courtesy of YouTube.
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