Jacky1980
Well-known member
I just got a reply from anther forum where I have post the same thread, hope this friend's experience can help you to understand my article.
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Hi Jacky,
I must have missed your thread when it was first posted, so have only just read it today. To be honest, I know virtually nothing of the origins of the philosophies you mention, but despite that, much of what you have put forward there is very similar to stuff I've written on the site myself over the last few years, albeit not so condenced and precise as what you have stated in your post.
I agree with you. I put this very same philosopy into practice to beat what was a lifelong and truly crippling severe facial blushing problem. I used basic CBT to change my attitude to the blushing, in so much as I learned to see the blush differently than I did before.
I went from being on the list for ETS surgery to erradicate blushing, and that is an operation with all sorts of possible risks, to actually beating blushing on my own, and without surgery at all. I did it through acceptance of the blush as an exaggeration of what is essentially normal. The exaggeration came from my fear of the blush. My fear fed the anxiety and fed the blushing. As soon as I accepted it and let it happen without fear was the day it stopped being a problem. When I didn't fear it anymore, it lost it's power over me. If I blush I just ride it out and let it go. I don't feed it with fear so it is shortlived or fails to appear at all. The very same approach can be used on social anxiety itself, with great result. I am having such results myself today through the very same approach.
Feed the monster and it grows. The SA monster is fed on fear. Take away it's food and it grows weaker.
Erradicating all anxiety is impossible, simply because anxiety is natural and part of the mechanism that protects us and keeps us alive. I used to make the mistake of thinking that beating SA meant erradication of all anxiety, but it is not the case at all. If I felt any anxiety at all I felt my efforts were a failure, but of course they were not. Beating SA is in the acceptance of normal levels of anxiety, not in repelling it with the aim of the erradication of it so we become biological robots. Acceptance of anxiety strips away the fear of it, and if we don't fear it we don't build it up into irrational proportions that take over our lives. This takes time to get right, but it is achievable. This is how we reach the point of feeling the fear ... but doing it anyway. We are then accepting that anxiety may be present, but we are prepared to work through it. Working through it proves that it can't actually harm us, so the fear reduces accordingly over time.
All in all this backs up what we say as counsellors - That we have all the resources within us to change ourselves if change is what we desire. Counselling can be helpful in assisting a person realise that they do actually have the inner resources to deal with their issues. I stumbled across the approach you mention through doing CBT on myself and through my own observations of life. When I had personal counselling it also helped me access my own resource pool. Doing so helped me adopt the approach you put forward, and my results over the past 4 years have vastly eclipsed those of the previous 40 years put together.
I often say on the site that when SA we sort of have a certain mindset. I just call it the SA mindset. We often spend a lot of time and energy justifying and backing up that mindset. Yet in order to beat SA we have to dismantle it and not give it too much credibility. It's the same with the symptoms. We have to stop throwing petrol on the fire in order to try to extinguish it, because all it does is fuel it further.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Jacky,
I must have missed your thread when it was first posted, so have only just read it today. To be honest, I know virtually nothing of the origins of the philosophies you mention, but despite that, much of what you have put forward there is very similar to stuff I've written on the site myself over the last few years, albeit not so condenced and precise as what you have stated in your post.
I agree with you. I put this very same philosopy into practice to beat what was a lifelong and truly crippling severe facial blushing problem. I used basic CBT to change my attitude to the blushing, in so much as I learned to see the blush differently than I did before.
I went from being on the list for ETS surgery to erradicate blushing, and that is an operation with all sorts of possible risks, to actually beating blushing on my own, and without surgery at all. I did it through acceptance of the blush as an exaggeration of what is essentially normal. The exaggeration came from my fear of the blush. My fear fed the anxiety and fed the blushing. As soon as I accepted it and let it happen without fear was the day it stopped being a problem. When I didn't fear it anymore, it lost it's power over me. If I blush I just ride it out and let it go. I don't feed it with fear so it is shortlived or fails to appear at all. The very same approach can be used on social anxiety itself, with great result. I am having such results myself today through the very same approach.
Feed the monster and it grows. The SA monster is fed on fear. Take away it's food and it grows weaker.
Erradicating all anxiety is impossible, simply because anxiety is natural and part of the mechanism that protects us and keeps us alive. I used to make the mistake of thinking that beating SA meant erradication of all anxiety, but it is not the case at all. If I felt any anxiety at all I felt my efforts were a failure, but of course they were not. Beating SA is in the acceptance of normal levels of anxiety, not in repelling it with the aim of the erradication of it so we become biological robots. Acceptance of anxiety strips away the fear of it, and if we don't fear it we don't build it up into irrational proportions that take over our lives. This takes time to get right, but it is achievable. This is how we reach the point of feeling the fear ... but doing it anyway. We are then accepting that anxiety may be present, but we are prepared to work through it. Working through it proves that it can't actually harm us, so the fear reduces accordingly over time.
All in all this backs up what we say as counsellors - That we have all the resources within us to change ourselves if change is what we desire. Counselling can be helpful in assisting a person realise that they do actually have the inner resources to deal with their issues. I stumbled across the approach you mention through doing CBT on myself and through my own observations of life. When I had personal counselling it also helped me access my own resource pool. Doing so helped me adopt the approach you put forward, and my results over the past 4 years have vastly eclipsed those of the previous 40 years put together.
I often say on the site that when SA we sort of have a certain mindset. I just call it the SA mindset. We often spend a lot of time and energy justifying and backing up that mindset. Yet in order to beat SA we have to dismantle it and not give it too much credibility. It's the same with the symptoms. We have to stop throwing petrol on the fire in order to try to extinguish it, because all it does is fuel it further.
