spaceboy135
Well-known member
These are notes I took from Overcoming SA: Step by Step for the first 5 weeks.
12/20/10
1) Repetition, Reinforcement, & Reprogramming
a. 30 minutes a day is important… Have consistency
2) Slow talk
a. Slows down brain’s thoughts
b. Makes you think about what you say
c. Makes you concentrate on what you’re saying
d. Helps control social anxiety and adrenaline
e. Slight relaxation and calming feeling, more control
f. You DON’T want to do this all the time, only when you’re nervous
i. Read something positive and uplifting in first week
1. You will sound:
a. Calm
b. Clear
c. In authority
ii. Read handouts out loud… because this has ten times the effect silent reading has. Your brain will pay more attention to it. You will speed up your healing tenfold by reading out loud.
3) How to CONTROL and eventually STOP automatic negative thinking:
a. You don’t choose to have this thinking—nobody does.
b. If you expect things to be negative, they will be negative.
i. ANTs set your mind up for failure.
c. Old, critical negative thoughts come from the past.
d. Thought stoppage #1:
i. Make a verbal statement that you do not like these negative thoughts and beliefs, and that you don’t intend to think this way the rest of your life.
ii. "Hey, wait a minute! I'm having those thoughts again that are not good for me. These thoughts are not healthy or helpful. They always lead me in the wrong direction. I'm going to break up those negative thoughts by finding some interesting distraction that I can do."
iii. You can also say, “Stop!”
iv. You must make rational statements that your brain can comprehend. Not too big or too irrational, or too grandiose.
v. Simply catch yourself when you’re in your automatic negative thinking mode this week, and stop yourself by doing something distracting
1. Do something distracting for several weeks until you’re able to stop your thoughts with thoughts alone.
2. Distractions:
a. Singing is good; you are using a completely different part of the brain than when you are thinking or speaking. Singing portion of your brain is more active than your thinking portion—sing to block out the unwanted ants. The more ants try to bother you, the more you should try singing as a distraction.
b. We don’t want to use distractions for the rest of our lives—only for now, the beginning of therapy.
vi. Next few sessions we’ll simply be throwing in rational thinking skills.
4) Rational Coping Statements—keep repeating these until they are permanently lodged inside of your brain
a. I've stopped my negative thoughts before and I'm going to do it again now. I am becoming better and better at deflecting these ANTs and that makes me happy.
b. All these things that are happening to me seem overwhelming. But I've caught myself this time and I refuse to focus on these things. Instead, I'm going to talk slowly to myself, focus away from my problem, and continue with what I have to do. In this way, my anxiety will have to shrink up and disappear.
c. The feeling I have about this event doesn't make much sense. This anxiety is like a mirage in the desert. I'll just continue to "walk" forward until I pass right through it.
5) Working for permanent life change—don’t force yourself. Go easy.
12/21/10
All these things that are happening to me seem overwhelming. But I’ve caught myself this time and I refuse to focus on these things. Instead, I’m going to talk slowly to myself, focus away from my problem, and contiue with what I have to do. In this way, my anxiety will have to shrink up and disappear.
1/4/11
Review of Last time: Numerous techniques are needed since no one can eradicate SA on its own.
1) Read books in slow talk—and then branch out slowly into real life
2) Get coping statements permanently down into your brain—they are not cures, but they’ll put another dent into the vicious cycle of SA.
3) Notice, and then catch yourself when you’re having automatic negative thoughts, make a rational and reasonable statement to yourself, and then do a dsitraction that takes your mind off of it for a while.
• Catching ANTs which have swirled around in our heads for years is not an easy habit. ANTs include wishing you could be like everyone else, wanting to go home instead of going out so you can relax, and bemoaning your fate..
• KEEP USING YOUR CATCHING/STOPPING ANTS TECHNIQUE as the weeks go by!!
Today:
1) 2nd Thought Stoppage Technique (will strengthen the first technique): ANTs handout.
2) ANTs are unhealthy for our mental health and unhelpful for overcoming SA.
3) You are not responsible for this negative thinking habit—but you’re the only person today who can pull yourself out of the ANTs quicksand. You CAN do it.
4) ANTs examples:
a. I make a fool of myself if I talk in front of a group of people!
b. I don’t know what to say when I’m introduced to a stranger… ☹
c. I get anxious just thinking about having to go to the company picnic…
d. What will I say to people? What will I do?
e. I’ll get so nervous that they’ll think I’m strange and weird.
f. I can’t stand up to anybody!
g. I’m afraid they won’t like me…
h. I don’t have a very good opinion of myself…
i. Being social is so easy for everyone else. Why is it impossible for me?
j. Being the center of attention causes my anxiety to go sky-high.
k. The thought of being criticized in public while being in the middle of a confrontation horrifies me.
5) NOTICE: All of these thoughts are fears based on our anxiety. THEY ARE NOT REALISTIC OR RATIONAL THOUGHTS! When you’re not feeling anxious, you do just fine talking with other people. When you’re not feeling anxious, you don’t feel strange or weird or like an outcast. When you’re not feeling anxious, you can do many of the things you tell yourself you cannot do. The REAL culprit here is anxiety, NOT your inability to engage in social activities. You have done many social activities before successfully. Go back to your childhood and remember how free you felt in those days. You still have the ability to do all the things you’ve done in the past. It’s just right now your Ants have built the anxiety up to huge proportions, and things seem and feel like they are impossible to do. But you’ve done many of these things before, and you’ve done them successfully. Right now it’s the anxiety, and ONLY the anxiety that’s holding you back. Therefore many of our beliefs are irrational and unrealistic and damaging to our progress. They’re also simply lies. You can already do almost everything you think you cant. It’s the social anxiety that makes it hard for you to believe this. But please notice that the negative beliefs and expectations you have about yourself are liars. They are not telling the truth. They are trying to scare you, trap you, keep you down in the gutter so that you can’t live a happy life—but NEVERTHELESS they are lies. If the thoughts in your mind are intrusive, pressuring, anxiety-producing, negative, scary, obsessive, or irrational, you are listening to what’s left over of the ants thoughts and feelings, that automatic negative thinking you’ve lived with for so long.
a. To summarize, you are just fine the way you are. You are a very good man who is hard-working, intelligent, strong-hearted, passionate, and all those things.
6) Read ANTs handout.
7) ANTs come from criticisms from others in the past that eventually become your own thoughts, since you’ve heard them over and over again so many times before. All the criticism you received caused all this. You did not fill your mind with criticism, blame, or guilt. Others did. But it’s YOU who has to get rid of them.
8) The more you catch your old automatic negative thoughts, deliberately reject them, and refuse to dwell on them by making a rational statement and using distractions, the more you are moving away from social anxiety and toward a healthier future. Always keep this in mind as you read the ANTS handout. And please read it everyday. Persistence adds up as days turn into weeks.
9) Listen to relaxation tape every night.
a. Don’t try to concentrate on tape or attempt to do anything. Just listen to the tapes and let things happen naturally. If your thoughts stray, that’s okay. When you notice they’re straying, just bring them back. The more you hear its message, the more it’ll sink down into your brain. First side is relaxation technique. Second side gets a word. It won’t work in first week, but eventually it will.
1/9/11
Review of Last week:
1) ANTs handout helps see how unhealthy you rnegative thinking is for you. The moe aware of this you are, the more you’ll stop the automatic negative thinking.
2) The more you catch ANTs and label them as liars, and move onto something else to get your mind of ANTs thinking, the easier and more automatic it becomes. If it’s not happening for you yet, keep reading ANTs hadnout.
1) ANTs are not telling you the truth. The more qiuckly you start to catch old ANTs, stop them, turn them around, and find something else positive to do instead of dwelling on them, the less and less ANTs will control your mind.
2) You WILL SUCCEED as long as you continue. Keep with daily reading.
a. As you use new ways of thinking more and old thinking less, the old way shrinks and shrinks and shrinks in its power to control your mind. You have to make a conscious decision to get better.
b. How do we know these are liars?
i. You weren’t born thinking negative thoughts, but you are the only one who cando something about your future.
ii. Train yourself to think rationally and positively.
iii. The lies have been believed for so very long that they feel very real.
iv. In a grocery line, you feel very self-conscious. HOWEVER, you look very normal to everyone else. Look around to prove to yourself that no one is looking at you or laughing at or making fun of you. In this way, your ANTs thoughts are lies!
v. People are not looking at you disapprovingly as you walk around at work or in the shopping mall. Test this out slowly by looking around slowly—people are in their own little worlds and are not paying very much attention to you at all.
vi. You are like Dr. Richards USED TO be (there’s hope). You might expect everyone to dislike you. You might feel inferior to other people. Because your self worth is damaged, you may not be able to think rationally and accurately about yourself. You might not even be able to say hello to another person correctly or look them in the eye properly and not know what to say to them. When you meet new people, you proabbly expect to look and sound foolish.
1. But you should consider this: People don’t dislike you even before they meet you. This inaccurate belief of yours sets you up for feeling inferior and being inhibited. It makes you afraid to meet new people. It prepares you to feel lower than other people.
a. ANTS:
i. They won’t like you
ii. You’ll be so nervous you won’t even be able to smile at them (Why should I even think about this?)
iii. You won’t know what to say
iv. You’re just an idiot
v. You’re no good at small talk
vi. How can anyone like you?
2. These ANTS are all built on lies.
vii. The more you have these negative thoughts and feelings about yourself, the more you’ll feel stupid, foolish, and hopeless.
3) People don’t dislike you if you run out of things to say or don’t know how to make small talk. EVERYONE has this happen to them. Takes two to have silence. Why blame yourself then?
4) Lots of people with SA are awesome people… But SA keeps their real personalities from coming out.
5) Some people interpret our shyness as unfriendliness, arrogance, and aloofness.
6) Face can freeze in tense social situations. Muslces would tighten so you can’t smile. People don’t respond well to you, NOT BECAUSE they don’t like you, but because they don’t know you, the real you, the person underneath all the anxiety and fear you feel. People may assume you are unfriendly and arrogant.
a. People saying, “Smile! Life can’t be all that bad!” make you feel even worse.
b. Refusals to social events might become automatic.
7) Remember: Slow talk calms you down, makes your speaking on target, and makes you think more clearly.
TODAY:
1) It’s so easy to want to fight your anxiety. But when you fight it, you only make it worse. This is a paradox—a truth that doesn’t make intuitive sense. Getting over social anxiety is one of the greatest paradoxes in the world.
2) All your negative thoughts about your anxiety MIGHT BE PERFECTLY VALID, but they don’t help. They reinforce the anxiety. They reinforce your feelings of helplessness and inadequacy, and your anxiety over social situations. By fighting it, you keep your mind centered and focused on your negative feelings. That makes it impossible for you to get any better
3) Read The Fighting Paradox
a. Every time you fight your anxiety, you wind up bloody and defeated. You can’t use negative emotions to cure negative emotions (i.e., agression vs. anxiety).
i. The things you do that you think will help you keep you trapped in your anxiety. The Fighting Paradox is also referred to as the acceptance paradox.
ii. Calm down, slow down, stop, accept the “lifeguard’s help”.
iii. If we learn to understand this paradox… if we don’t fight or battle or struggle or try to kill anxiety through our own efforts, then it’ll shrink and shrink.
iv. HOW DO WE DO THIS?
1. Step by step instructions:
a. Accept yourself just as you are right now, flaws and all. Rationally you know you are a good person who doesn’t enjoy hurting others’ feelings. Accept that although you are okay, you have an anxiety disorder you don’t like. “I am basically a good, descent person, and I have an anxiety problem.”
b. I may have lived with social anxiety for a long time, but now I am learning how to decrease it and move past it. I don’t understand all the details, but I’m heading in that direction. It is MY CHOICE to keep moving in this healthy and helpful direction at all times. I’m not a quitter, and I refuse to give up. If I don’t give up, anxiety has no choice but to shrink until it is gone.
v. If you keep fighitng anxiety, anxiety will win. If you keep rehashing the past and ruminating over how you “did” and bemoaning your fate, anxiety will win. If you keep comparing yourself to others and feeling left out and alone, anxiety will win. If you keep forcing yourself to do highly anxious activities, thinking that facing your fears will make it go away, anxiety will win. If you keep measuring or judging your “performance”, whether in speech, eye-contact, or facial expressiveness, anxiety will win.
b. THAT WHICH YOU RESIST PERSISTS!
i. Stay in your positive emotions as much as you can. Don’t use your old negative emotions,.
1. Don’t curse fate
2. Don’t get depressed
3. Don’t verablize defeat and say you can’t see light at the end of the tunnel
ii. So stay in positive emotions.
iii. Don’t battle the alien energy force. The more Captain Kirk fought it, the more powerful it became, and the more the ship’s power, lighting, and fuel began to disappear. There’s no fighting, aggression, or use of weapons when they begin to win. They smile, tell jokes, sing, and are light-hearted. They laugh at the alien energy force and don’t take it seriously at all, even though it’s jeopardizing their lives. Because when it’s not being fed negative emotions, it starts to shrink.
1. For reference, see point 2 of today’s notes (underneath point 2).
iv. The witch doesn’t care if you try to run, but if you try to outmaneuver her or outsmart her or shoot her or whatever, or if you go through any of the five negative emotional stages, she’ll be empowered by you. The witch can handle war, fighting, death, blood, aggression, panic, and destruction—she loves to see all those things in people. When she sees those things, she knows she’s in total control! But the one thing that can destroy her forever and for good is cool, calm refreshing water. POSITIVE emotions killed the wicked witch. There was no battle or struggle involved… The only power the witch had was the power people gave her. The witch has no power at all unless people succumb to her outward appearance and bleieve she did.
1. Dorothy’s liberation from anxiety, fear, doom, and death was an accident.
2. SAD uses the way you were mentally programmed when you were younger to keep you trapped. If you believe what it tells you, then it has you trapped, entombed, and immobile. And believe it or not, you CAN stop believing your old ANTs lies! You must never believe the ANTS lies. You must treat them like the deceitful bullying of the wicked witch of the west.
c. REMEMBER: Accept yourself as you are now, learn not to fight and battle your anxiety, learn to stop all pressuring and beating up of yourself. Why? Becauase anxiety feeds and fuels itself on these forms of negative thinking. The more we accept ourselves, then the quicker and more neatly you’ll overcome your social anxiety. When you learn to accept, and not to resist, you are throwing cool and calming water on anxiety. Anxiety has no choice in the matter—YOU are the one who is entirely in control. When you can accept that you have anxiety at present—temporarily—then your life will become much easier..
4) Statements:
a. “Okay, I have social anxiety now. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is. I have decided to get help and move toward overcoming it.”
b. “Negative emotions make things worse. I’ll move ahead with therapy. I’ll accept it for now. As I meet anxiety with more peace and calmness, it has no choice but to break up and go away, and then the vicious cycle will end for good.”
5) ANTICIPATORY ANXIETY: You can do the things you worry about. You’ve done it before, and you can do it again. One of the most powerful distractions is physical exercise. Burning cortisol off by working out helps.. Get active—move around and get exercise. It won’t cure you, but it’ll help to lower anxiety temporarily. Don’t sit still dwelling or dreading—instead, get up, get out, and start moving.
This week:
1) Check constantly this week that you’re not doing any of the five negative behaviors that are poison to your health. Accept yourself and your problems for right now. The more you do this, the more easily you will overcome social anxiety.
2) Try exercising when you are bothered by anticipatory anxiety.
3) Get coping statements down into your brain. Read over them everyday.
4) Use handouts as needed.
5) 30 minute routine 7 days a week guarantees success. Maybe you don’t feel progress yet, but you’ll notice something soon.
6) Keep slow talking
7) Keep reading ANTs handout everyday. Let words gently sink into your mind. You need to do this so these thoughts become automatic and begin to catch your negative thinking and beliefs.
1/17/11
1) When I begin to get frustrated over my anxieties and fears:
a. Am I able to catch myself and stop?
b. Am I able to calm down, slow down, and relax a little?
c. Am I able to say, “This lying anxiety feeling may be around for now, but its days are numbered. I refuse to meet anxiety with any negative emotion. I won’t fuel it by getting frustrated, angry, or irritated; won’t throw a pity party and tell myself this isn’t fair anymore.” The more I avoid the negative emotions, the quicker my anxiety will shrivel up and disappear.
d. Am I able to accept the fact that SA may be around for now, but I’ve already taken som positive , concrete steps against it, and the more I do so, the more it’ll diminish.
2) We cannot let anxiety scare us, frustrate us, depress us, or irritate us. It’ll fan the raging fire if we do. That which you resist persists. Don’t fight SA… Accept it as a temporary condition.
a. Stay calm, call its bluff, and refuse to fuel its raging fires.
3) There is nothing wrong with you. The only thing wrong at present is the way you think about yourself and the world around you. You have SA, but you weren’t born with it—it came from environmental circumstances and such. Therefore it isn’t ingrained in your personality.
a. It’s tricked you and lied to you about your talents, abilities, and self-worth. The ONLY THING wrong with you right now is the way you see yourself and the world around you.
4) Physical activity and exercise gives mind the chance to have very positive neurochemical endorphines flood the brain—an excellent antidote to anxiety. It also burns off adrenaline and cortisol. When you start to feel the fear/anxiety/apprehension, start moving; start exercising; just do it.
TODAY: ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬_______________________________________________________________
1) You’re not going to believe everything you read or hear at first. Repetiion will help though.
2) Read Attitudes Handout
a. Attitudes are very close to being beliefs and emotions. Beliefs are so emotionally charged that they become the truth.
i. Crusaders believed they were destined to control the holy land in God’s name; they acted on those beliefs by engaging in the long, tragic wars called the Crusades.
ii. Islanders are so afriad of being cursed to death that when they are cursed, they literally die of fear. Same goes for voodoo.
iii. We believe in our fears so strongly that our fears have become the truth and have defined out worlds to us. Our lives are defined by our fears. Our fears have become the truth to us. It’s only when we choose not to believe in them anymore that we start to make progress.
b. Our perspective of the world is skewed, because we see everything through anxiety-colored glasses.
i. If I think someone doesn’t like me, who cares? That’s their problem. If they’re such a bad judge of character, I don’t want to know them anyway.
ii. I didn’t do anything embarrassing. Why am I dwelling on this? This happened in the past; nobody but me even remembers it.
iii. Why do I care about what other people think of me anyway? I’ve got better things to do than wory about this. IF they don’t like me, that’s their own tough luck. I’m tired of making a mountain out of a molehill. Everybody has problems, and they always smake it through. I always make it through too, and it’s ntohing to get excited about. It’s just NO BIG DEAL!
iv. If you have anticipatory anxiety about an upcoming event, so what? Better to find a distraction to deal with it than to give in to the negative thought cycle and the rumination. Why should I be dwelling on this stuff anyway?
v. If someone doesn’t like what I’ve done, who cares? They can go take a flying leap. Worrying certainly never did me any good.
c. Tone of voice sends a message to the brain too. One day these attitude statements will start to automatically appear in our minds.
3) Read Expectations
a. If you expect others to reject you, they will. Vice versa.
b. You’re not as down and out as you think. Look at all the good qualities and abilites you possess.
4) You get over anxiety disorders when brain starts automatically using the new neural pathways. If you use new pathway and ignore and neglect the old anxiety pathway, it grows smaller. To some extent, we want to use what we know is best for us and stay away from the triggers that lead us down the old anxiety pathway.
a. Sometims you’ll think you have anxiety pretty much licked. But then when something stimulates your old pathway again and triggers its mechanisms, you’ll feel defeated and deflated and utterly shocked.
b. Setbacks are acdtually positive experiences, not negative ones. Your old neural pathway somehow got stimulated or triggered, and new neural pathway didn’t have enough time or strength to respond. That’s perfectly normal; it’s part of recovering from an anxiety disorder.
i. You must call anxiety’s bluff.
ii. You mustn’t think that things will stay bad forever.
iii. Your new brain pathway doesn’t die out unless you totally give up. Even if you have setback, your new pathway is still there and can still continue to grow.
iv. Save yourself weeks of torture by rationalizing that your setback is a completely normal experience.
1. Deliberately refuse to wallow in the mud.
2. Deliberately choose to move on.
5) Question the anxiety beliefs you have about yourself. You don’t need to try to change them yet:
a. Are you sure it’s really true you scare people every single time you look at them?
b. If so, why?
c. Do they seem scared?
d. What do you think you’re doing wrong anyway?
e. Is that rational?
6) Slow talk makes you stop thinking about what the other is thinking about you so much. You can actually hear your own thoughts more and listen to them better.
7) Don’t beat yourself up for anything. If you “mess something up,” no big deal.
12/20/10
1) Repetition, Reinforcement, & Reprogramming
a. 30 minutes a day is important… Have consistency
2) Slow talk
a. Slows down brain’s thoughts
b. Makes you think about what you say
c. Makes you concentrate on what you’re saying
d. Helps control social anxiety and adrenaline
e. Slight relaxation and calming feeling, more control
f. You DON’T want to do this all the time, only when you’re nervous
i. Read something positive and uplifting in first week
1. You will sound:
a. Calm
b. Clear
c. In authority
ii. Read handouts out loud… because this has ten times the effect silent reading has. Your brain will pay more attention to it. You will speed up your healing tenfold by reading out loud.
3) How to CONTROL and eventually STOP automatic negative thinking:
a. You don’t choose to have this thinking—nobody does.
b. If you expect things to be negative, they will be negative.
i. ANTs set your mind up for failure.
c. Old, critical negative thoughts come from the past.
d. Thought stoppage #1:
i. Make a verbal statement that you do not like these negative thoughts and beliefs, and that you don’t intend to think this way the rest of your life.
ii. "Hey, wait a minute! I'm having those thoughts again that are not good for me. These thoughts are not healthy or helpful. They always lead me in the wrong direction. I'm going to break up those negative thoughts by finding some interesting distraction that I can do."
iii. You can also say, “Stop!”
iv. You must make rational statements that your brain can comprehend. Not too big or too irrational, or too grandiose.
v. Simply catch yourself when you’re in your automatic negative thinking mode this week, and stop yourself by doing something distracting
1. Do something distracting for several weeks until you’re able to stop your thoughts with thoughts alone.
2. Distractions:
a. Singing is good; you are using a completely different part of the brain than when you are thinking or speaking. Singing portion of your brain is more active than your thinking portion—sing to block out the unwanted ants. The more ants try to bother you, the more you should try singing as a distraction.
b. We don’t want to use distractions for the rest of our lives—only for now, the beginning of therapy.
vi. Next few sessions we’ll simply be throwing in rational thinking skills.
4) Rational Coping Statements—keep repeating these until they are permanently lodged inside of your brain
a. I've stopped my negative thoughts before and I'm going to do it again now. I am becoming better and better at deflecting these ANTs and that makes me happy.
b. All these things that are happening to me seem overwhelming. But I've caught myself this time and I refuse to focus on these things. Instead, I'm going to talk slowly to myself, focus away from my problem, and continue with what I have to do. In this way, my anxiety will have to shrink up and disappear.
c. The feeling I have about this event doesn't make much sense. This anxiety is like a mirage in the desert. I'll just continue to "walk" forward until I pass right through it.
5) Working for permanent life change—don’t force yourself. Go easy.
12/21/10
All these things that are happening to me seem overwhelming. But I’ve caught myself this time and I refuse to focus on these things. Instead, I’m going to talk slowly to myself, focus away from my problem, and contiue with what I have to do. In this way, my anxiety will have to shrink up and disappear.
1/4/11
Review of Last time: Numerous techniques are needed since no one can eradicate SA on its own.
1) Read books in slow talk—and then branch out slowly into real life
2) Get coping statements permanently down into your brain—they are not cures, but they’ll put another dent into the vicious cycle of SA.
3) Notice, and then catch yourself when you’re having automatic negative thoughts, make a rational and reasonable statement to yourself, and then do a dsitraction that takes your mind off of it for a while.
• Catching ANTs which have swirled around in our heads for years is not an easy habit. ANTs include wishing you could be like everyone else, wanting to go home instead of going out so you can relax, and bemoaning your fate..
• KEEP USING YOUR CATCHING/STOPPING ANTS TECHNIQUE as the weeks go by!!
Today:
1) 2nd Thought Stoppage Technique (will strengthen the first technique): ANTs handout.
2) ANTs are unhealthy for our mental health and unhelpful for overcoming SA.
3) You are not responsible for this negative thinking habit—but you’re the only person today who can pull yourself out of the ANTs quicksand. You CAN do it.
4) ANTs examples:
a. I make a fool of myself if I talk in front of a group of people!
b. I don’t know what to say when I’m introduced to a stranger… ☹
c. I get anxious just thinking about having to go to the company picnic…
d. What will I say to people? What will I do?
e. I’ll get so nervous that they’ll think I’m strange and weird.
f. I can’t stand up to anybody!
g. I’m afraid they won’t like me…
h. I don’t have a very good opinion of myself…
i. Being social is so easy for everyone else. Why is it impossible for me?
j. Being the center of attention causes my anxiety to go sky-high.
k. The thought of being criticized in public while being in the middle of a confrontation horrifies me.
5) NOTICE: All of these thoughts are fears based on our anxiety. THEY ARE NOT REALISTIC OR RATIONAL THOUGHTS! When you’re not feeling anxious, you do just fine talking with other people. When you’re not feeling anxious, you don’t feel strange or weird or like an outcast. When you’re not feeling anxious, you can do many of the things you tell yourself you cannot do. The REAL culprit here is anxiety, NOT your inability to engage in social activities. You have done many social activities before successfully. Go back to your childhood and remember how free you felt in those days. You still have the ability to do all the things you’ve done in the past. It’s just right now your Ants have built the anxiety up to huge proportions, and things seem and feel like they are impossible to do. But you’ve done many of these things before, and you’ve done them successfully. Right now it’s the anxiety, and ONLY the anxiety that’s holding you back. Therefore many of our beliefs are irrational and unrealistic and damaging to our progress. They’re also simply lies. You can already do almost everything you think you cant. It’s the social anxiety that makes it hard for you to believe this. But please notice that the negative beliefs and expectations you have about yourself are liars. They are not telling the truth. They are trying to scare you, trap you, keep you down in the gutter so that you can’t live a happy life—but NEVERTHELESS they are lies. If the thoughts in your mind are intrusive, pressuring, anxiety-producing, negative, scary, obsessive, or irrational, you are listening to what’s left over of the ants thoughts and feelings, that automatic negative thinking you’ve lived with for so long.
a. To summarize, you are just fine the way you are. You are a very good man who is hard-working, intelligent, strong-hearted, passionate, and all those things.
6) Read ANTs handout.
7) ANTs come from criticisms from others in the past that eventually become your own thoughts, since you’ve heard them over and over again so many times before. All the criticism you received caused all this. You did not fill your mind with criticism, blame, or guilt. Others did. But it’s YOU who has to get rid of them.
8) The more you catch your old automatic negative thoughts, deliberately reject them, and refuse to dwell on them by making a rational statement and using distractions, the more you are moving away from social anxiety and toward a healthier future. Always keep this in mind as you read the ANTS handout. And please read it everyday. Persistence adds up as days turn into weeks.
9) Listen to relaxation tape every night.
a. Don’t try to concentrate on tape or attempt to do anything. Just listen to the tapes and let things happen naturally. If your thoughts stray, that’s okay. When you notice they’re straying, just bring them back. The more you hear its message, the more it’ll sink down into your brain. First side is relaxation technique. Second side gets a word. It won’t work in first week, but eventually it will.
1/9/11
Review of Last week:
1) ANTs handout helps see how unhealthy you rnegative thinking is for you. The moe aware of this you are, the more you’ll stop the automatic negative thinking.
2) The more you catch ANTs and label them as liars, and move onto something else to get your mind of ANTs thinking, the easier and more automatic it becomes. If it’s not happening for you yet, keep reading ANTs hadnout.
1) ANTs are not telling you the truth. The more qiuckly you start to catch old ANTs, stop them, turn them around, and find something else positive to do instead of dwelling on them, the less and less ANTs will control your mind.
2) You WILL SUCCEED as long as you continue. Keep with daily reading.
a. As you use new ways of thinking more and old thinking less, the old way shrinks and shrinks and shrinks in its power to control your mind. You have to make a conscious decision to get better.
b. How do we know these are liars?
i. You weren’t born thinking negative thoughts, but you are the only one who cando something about your future.
ii. Train yourself to think rationally and positively.
iii. The lies have been believed for so very long that they feel very real.
iv. In a grocery line, you feel very self-conscious. HOWEVER, you look very normal to everyone else. Look around to prove to yourself that no one is looking at you or laughing at or making fun of you. In this way, your ANTs thoughts are lies!
v. People are not looking at you disapprovingly as you walk around at work or in the shopping mall. Test this out slowly by looking around slowly—people are in their own little worlds and are not paying very much attention to you at all.
vi. You are like Dr. Richards USED TO be (there’s hope). You might expect everyone to dislike you. You might feel inferior to other people. Because your self worth is damaged, you may not be able to think rationally and accurately about yourself. You might not even be able to say hello to another person correctly or look them in the eye properly and not know what to say to them. When you meet new people, you proabbly expect to look and sound foolish.
1. But you should consider this: People don’t dislike you even before they meet you. This inaccurate belief of yours sets you up for feeling inferior and being inhibited. It makes you afraid to meet new people. It prepares you to feel lower than other people.
a. ANTS:
i. They won’t like you
ii. You’ll be so nervous you won’t even be able to smile at them (Why should I even think about this?)
iii. You won’t know what to say
iv. You’re just an idiot
v. You’re no good at small talk
vi. How can anyone like you?
2. These ANTS are all built on lies.
vii. The more you have these negative thoughts and feelings about yourself, the more you’ll feel stupid, foolish, and hopeless.
3) People don’t dislike you if you run out of things to say or don’t know how to make small talk. EVERYONE has this happen to them. Takes two to have silence. Why blame yourself then?
4) Lots of people with SA are awesome people… But SA keeps their real personalities from coming out.
5) Some people interpret our shyness as unfriendliness, arrogance, and aloofness.
6) Face can freeze in tense social situations. Muslces would tighten so you can’t smile. People don’t respond well to you, NOT BECAUSE they don’t like you, but because they don’t know you, the real you, the person underneath all the anxiety and fear you feel. People may assume you are unfriendly and arrogant.
a. People saying, “Smile! Life can’t be all that bad!” make you feel even worse.
b. Refusals to social events might become automatic.
7) Remember: Slow talk calms you down, makes your speaking on target, and makes you think more clearly.
TODAY:
1) It’s so easy to want to fight your anxiety. But when you fight it, you only make it worse. This is a paradox—a truth that doesn’t make intuitive sense. Getting over social anxiety is one of the greatest paradoxes in the world.
2) All your negative thoughts about your anxiety MIGHT BE PERFECTLY VALID, but they don’t help. They reinforce the anxiety. They reinforce your feelings of helplessness and inadequacy, and your anxiety over social situations. By fighting it, you keep your mind centered and focused on your negative feelings. That makes it impossible for you to get any better
3) Read The Fighting Paradox
a. Every time you fight your anxiety, you wind up bloody and defeated. You can’t use negative emotions to cure negative emotions (i.e., agression vs. anxiety).
i. The things you do that you think will help you keep you trapped in your anxiety. The Fighting Paradox is also referred to as the acceptance paradox.
ii. Calm down, slow down, stop, accept the “lifeguard’s help”.
iii. If we learn to understand this paradox… if we don’t fight or battle or struggle or try to kill anxiety through our own efforts, then it’ll shrink and shrink.
iv. HOW DO WE DO THIS?
1. Step by step instructions:
a. Accept yourself just as you are right now, flaws and all. Rationally you know you are a good person who doesn’t enjoy hurting others’ feelings. Accept that although you are okay, you have an anxiety disorder you don’t like. “I am basically a good, descent person, and I have an anxiety problem.”
b. I may have lived with social anxiety for a long time, but now I am learning how to decrease it and move past it. I don’t understand all the details, but I’m heading in that direction. It is MY CHOICE to keep moving in this healthy and helpful direction at all times. I’m not a quitter, and I refuse to give up. If I don’t give up, anxiety has no choice but to shrink until it is gone.
v. If you keep fighitng anxiety, anxiety will win. If you keep rehashing the past and ruminating over how you “did” and bemoaning your fate, anxiety will win. If you keep comparing yourself to others and feeling left out and alone, anxiety will win. If you keep forcing yourself to do highly anxious activities, thinking that facing your fears will make it go away, anxiety will win. If you keep measuring or judging your “performance”, whether in speech, eye-contact, or facial expressiveness, anxiety will win.
b. THAT WHICH YOU RESIST PERSISTS!
i. Stay in your positive emotions as much as you can. Don’t use your old negative emotions,.
1. Don’t curse fate
2. Don’t get depressed
3. Don’t verablize defeat and say you can’t see light at the end of the tunnel
ii. So stay in positive emotions.
iii. Don’t battle the alien energy force. The more Captain Kirk fought it, the more powerful it became, and the more the ship’s power, lighting, and fuel began to disappear. There’s no fighting, aggression, or use of weapons when they begin to win. They smile, tell jokes, sing, and are light-hearted. They laugh at the alien energy force and don’t take it seriously at all, even though it’s jeopardizing their lives. Because when it’s not being fed negative emotions, it starts to shrink.
1. For reference, see point 2 of today’s notes (underneath point 2).
iv. The witch doesn’t care if you try to run, but if you try to outmaneuver her or outsmart her or shoot her or whatever, or if you go through any of the five negative emotional stages, she’ll be empowered by you. The witch can handle war, fighting, death, blood, aggression, panic, and destruction—she loves to see all those things in people. When she sees those things, she knows she’s in total control! But the one thing that can destroy her forever and for good is cool, calm refreshing water. POSITIVE emotions killed the wicked witch. There was no battle or struggle involved… The only power the witch had was the power people gave her. The witch has no power at all unless people succumb to her outward appearance and bleieve she did.
1. Dorothy’s liberation from anxiety, fear, doom, and death was an accident.
2. SAD uses the way you were mentally programmed when you were younger to keep you trapped. If you believe what it tells you, then it has you trapped, entombed, and immobile. And believe it or not, you CAN stop believing your old ANTs lies! You must never believe the ANTS lies. You must treat them like the deceitful bullying of the wicked witch of the west.
c. REMEMBER: Accept yourself as you are now, learn not to fight and battle your anxiety, learn to stop all pressuring and beating up of yourself. Why? Becauase anxiety feeds and fuels itself on these forms of negative thinking. The more we accept ourselves, then the quicker and more neatly you’ll overcome your social anxiety. When you learn to accept, and not to resist, you are throwing cool and calming water on anxiety. Anxiety has no choice in the matter—YOU are the one who is entirely in control. When you can accept that you have anxiety at present—temporarily—then your life will become much easier..
4) Statements:
a. “Okay, I have social anxiety now. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is. I have decided to get help and move toward overcoming it.”
b. “Negative emotions make things worse. I’ll move ahead with therapy. I’ll accept it for now. As I meet anxiety with more peace and calmness, it has no choice but to break up and go away, and then the vicious cycle will end for good.”
5) ANTICIPATORY ANXIETY: You can do the things you worry about. You’ve done it before, and you can do it again. One of the most powerful distractions is physical exercise. Burning cortisol off by working out helps.. Get active—move around and get exercise. It won’t cure you, but it’ll help to lower anxiety temporarily. Don’t sit still dwelling or dreading—instead, get up, get out, and start moving.
This week:
1) Check constantly this week that you’re not doing any of the five negative behaviors that are poison to your health. Accept yourself and your problems for right now. The more you do this, the more easily you will overcome social anxiety.
2) Try exercising when you are bothered by anticipatory anxiety.
3) Get coping statements down into your brain. Read over them everyday.
4) Use handouts as needed.
5) 30 minute routine 7 days a week guarantees success. Maybe you don’t feel progress yet, but you’ll notice something soon.
6) Keep slow talking
7) Keep reading ANTs handout everyday. Let words gently sink into your mind. You need to do this so these thoughts become automatic and begin to catch your negative thinking and beliefs.
1/17/11
1) When I begin to get frustrated over my anxieties and fears:
a. Am I able to catch myself and stop?
b. Am I able to calm down, slow down, and relax a little?
c. Am I able to say, “This lying anxiety feeling may be around for now, but its days are numbered. I refuse to meet anxiety with any negative emotion. I won’t fuel it by getting frustrated, angry, or irritated; won’t throw a pity party and tell myself this isn’t fair anymore.” The more I avoid the negative emotions, the quicker my anxiety will shrivel up and disappear.
d. Am I able to accept the fact that SA may be around for now, but I’ve already taken som positive , concrete steps against it, and the more I do so, the more it’ll diminish.
2) We cannot let anxiety scare us, frustrate us, depress us, or irritate us. It’ll fan the raging fire if we do. That which you resist persists. Don’t fight SA… Accept it as a temporary condition.
a. Stay calm, call its bluff, and refuse to fuel its raging fires.
3) There is nothing wrong with you. The only thing wrong at present is the way you think about yourself and the world around you. You have SA, but you weren’t born with it—it came from environmental circumstances and such. Therefore it isn’t ingrained in your personality.
a. It’s tricked you and lied to you about your talents, abilities, and self-worth. The ONLY THING wrong with you right now is the way you see yourself and the world around you.
4) Physical activity and exercise gives mind the chance to have very positive neurochemical endorphines flood the brain—an excellent antidote to anxiety. It also burns off adrenaline and cortisol. When you start to feel the fear/anxiety/apprehension, start moving; start exercising; just do it.
TODAY: ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬_______________________________________________________________
1) You’re not going to believe everything you read or hear at first. Repetiion will help though.
2) Read Attitudes Handout
a. Attitudes are very close to being beliefs and emotions. Beliefs are so emotionally charged that they become the truth.
i. Crusaders believed they were destined to control the holy land in God’s name; they acted on those beliefs by engaging in the long, tragic wars called the Crusades.
ii. Islanders are so afriad of being cursed to death that when they are cursed, they literally die of fear. Same goes for voodoo.
iii. We believe in our fears so strongly that our fears have become the truth and have defined out worlds to us. Our lives are defined by our fears. Our fears have become the truth to us. It’s only when we choose not to believe in them anymore that we start to make progress.
b. Our perspective of the world is skewed, because we see everything through anxiety-colored glasses.
i. If I think someone doesn’t like me, who cares? That’s their problem. If they’re such a bad judge of character, I don’t want to know them anyway.
ii. I didn’t do anything embarrassing. Why am I dwelling on this? This happened in the past; nobody but me even remembers it.
iii. Why do I care about what other people think of me anyway? I’ve got better things to do than wory about this. IF they don’t like me, that’s their own tough luck. I’m tired of making a mountain out of a molehill. Everybody has problems, and they always smake it through. I always make it through too, and it’s ntohing to get excited about. It’s just NO BIG DEAL!
iv. If you have anticipatory anxiety about an upcoming event, so what? Better to find a distraction to deal with it than to give in to the negative thought cycle and the rumination. Why should I be dwelling on this stuff anyway?
v. If someone doesn’t like what I’ve done, who cares? They can go take a flying leap. Worrying certainly never did me any good.
c. Tone of voice sends a message to the brain too. One day these attitude statements will start to automatically appear in our minds.
3) Read Expectations
a. If you expect others to reject you, they will. Vice versa.
b. You’re not as down and out as you think. Look at all the good qualities and abilites you possess.
4) You get over anxiety disorders when brain starts automatically using the new neural pathways. If you use new pathway and ignore and neglect the old anxiety pathway, it grows smaller. To some extent, we want to use what we know is best for us and stay away from the triggers that lead us down the old anxiety pathway.
a. Sometims you’ll think you have anxiety pretty much licked. But then when something stimulates your old pathway again and triggers its mechanisms, you’ll feel defeated and deflated and utterly shocked.
b. Setbacks are acdtually positive experiences, not negative ones. Your old neural pathway somehow got stimulated or triggered, and new neural pathway didn’t have enough time or strength to respond. That’s perfectly normal; it’s part of recovering from an anxiety disorder.
i. You must call anxiety’s bluff.
ii. You mustn’t think that things will stay bad forever.
iii. Your new brain pathway doesn’t die out unless you totally give up. Even if you have setback, your new pathway is still there and can still continue to grow.
iv. Save yourself weeks of torture by rationalizing that your setback is a completely normal experience.
1. Deliberately refuse to wallow in the mud.
2. Deliberately choose to move on.
5) Question the anxiety beliefs you have about yourself. You don’t need to try to change them yet:
a. Are you sure it’s really true you scare people every single time you look at them?
b. If so, why?
c. Do they seem scared?
d. What do you think you’re doing wrong anyway?
e. Is that rational?
6) Slow talk makes you stop thinking about what the other is thinking about you so much. You can actually hear your own thoughts more and listen to them better.
7) Don’t beat yourself up for anything. If you “mess something up,” no big deal.
