Changing the social anxiety cycle

I was at a turning point unlike any I had experienced before. As with many previous “attempts”, It was exciting to dream about what the future held for me, but this time it was different. I finally figured something out – something real and tangible, that I could use to combat my social phobia. A starting point had been revealed to me.

The problem with most of my previous attempts, was that I did not have a defined starting point. I would build myself up with positive self-talk, follow all the procedures from the latest book, but still end up unchanged in the end. I was throwing myself at society with a handful of generic “techniques for success”, but I was making two critical mistakes. One, was that I did not have a plan and a starting point - and the other, was that I could not channel social input properly.

Attending a party while telling myself that I had tons of confidence, everyone liked me, and repeating words like, “I am wonderful,” was not working – go figure. Not only was it not working, it was making things worse. I was becoming more self-conscience and anxious. That’s why I don’t believe that exposure on it’s own, will improve anything. After several attempts, I realized that I was just providing more negative truths for my sub-conscience to eat up.

I finally knew what I had to do. If my brain thrived on truth – and if that was the only thing it believed, then I would have to change it from negative to positive. I hoped that by giving it believable, positive truths, my belief system would slowly turn around. As the belief system turned more positive, so would the ability to extract the positive truth from each social encounter – and so on…

Even though I still had no idea how I would accomplish this task, I was probably the happiest I had been in my entire life. For once, I knew what I had to do. The fact that I could say that, with 100% certainty, gave me a new outlook on life and hope that I would, someday, be free of anxiety and worry - a second chance to have a group of close friends, experience romance, have the confidence to get along in society, chase my dreams, and be truly happy.

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