Dear friends!I want to tell you sth.

[Spfreezes]

At first,I want to say that I just love you. Nobody knows why we are crying and feeling so sorry to have that damn SA.And there are nobody who can understand me except you.Thank you so much. :roll:
Anyway... I have an idea.I thought it will be so useful to write what we have experienced about SF.Only a few words.I want to start with my experiences.

İf you fell so happy to have or win sth ,you will see that SF is over.You can belive what you do.So smiling is the so important.And you must make fun of life.You must realise that people are so innocent.And also breathing exercises are useful too.From now on I can tell my ideas about the subject in the class.And I have made some small presentations.I only scare of being on the board.(excuse me my English would be bad sometimes.)But I will get use to it.I believe.And don't forget!Never give up!

I hope I could help you. :wink: See you!

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Hey Spfreezes,

I'm writing to you because you talked about smiling helping. Someone gave me this advice as well for when I feel anxious; and whilst it is taking some concentration on my part to make sure that I 'remember' to do this in place of anxious reactions that I am not completely concious of having -when I pause and take notice to make sure that I smile when I am worrying: this is helping me!!

Also, another thing that may be helping me is that through talking to someone else about SA, I am realising that focussing on anxiety and telling my self that I need to concentrate and see that I am not anxious, in fact puts pressure on my self. ....That this is part of the 'vicious circle' that is such a hard thing to really disentangle oneself from, because being a party to the vicious circle of anxiety -the fear of fear- can involve such subtle thoughts and attitudes that it is hard to be aware of what these are.

-But I believe that there is an obsessive compulsive aspect to my social anxiety. And I am noticing that for situations in which I get anxious (have been anxious before) that I then focus on anxiety and these situations -building these situations and my fears/worries/expectations about what can happen and how I will behave, instead of taking a more casual approach.

Basically, i am trying to notice how I feed my anxiety by the thoughts that I have and these thoughts are subtle.

And this choosing to not put expectations on my self to stop my anxiety and/or get rid of it, with also the 'smiling' technique (which I think helps me to replace a negative fearful reaction with a positive, welcoming action) seems to be simplifying social interactions that are otherwised experienced by me as complicated and troublesome.

I am not sure if these are exactly the reasons why I feel I am doing better -maybe there are other reasons (thoughts) as well - but I am feeling better and hopeful. Even if I am getting through my trouble in a step by step fashion. ...well, I will just keep going and see how it goes...

And it is good and encouraging to hear that you have gotten past and through social anxiety!