You want to know how to change your social anxiety / phobia?

[Jack-B]

Hi Samana,

I like what everyone has said on this thread, its been really challenging and im gonna make this my last post.

Samana wrote:

"Sometimes finding that clearer more logical view of anxiety (instead of a more emotional one say) and trying to be patient and forgiving with ourselves is so damn hard. Like you said, we are probably all incredibly cruel with ourselves and expecting way too much, or just expecting what is not reasonable for some reason or another. "

Jack:

I believe you can be patient with your self yet ruthless with your anxiety. Making this distinction benefits us in these ways.

1. We cease to identify the effects of anxiety as our self, so we dont blame our self, attack our self, lower of self confidence or indulge in unecessary anyalsis of our self, we can treat our self lightly and actually experience anxiety with more acceptance.

2. We can attack our mind of anxiety and blame it for everything that goes wrong and see its distortive infleunce on our reality. We can thoroughly dis believe this mind which appears to be telling us the truth, such as, i am afraid of these people, why am i so shy blah blah blah. We stop listening to it, stop feeding it, and when we stop feeding it, it gets weak, then it dies.

Jack

 

[samana]

worrydoll- I think Jack just meant imagine *if* the world were like that... then there couldn't possibly be social anxiety because nothing would reinforce it to continue to exist

 

[romeno82]

samana wrote:

trying to be patient and forgiving with ourselves is so damn hard. Like you said, we are probably all incredibly cruel with ourselves and expecting way too much, or just expecting what is not reasonable for some reason or another.

one thing is sure: from today to tomorrow you cant get over SP. like i´ve said before i think the SP condition is a a stall condition. i´ll try to explain it this way: a nfl-player hasnt trained for 1 year for a very bad injury, cant barely walk, and tomorrow he is supposed to play the super bowl. he expect to make himself MVP of the game. do you think he will play good? his teammates dont expect anything from him, but his expectations on himself are such exagerated.

next day super bowl. during the game the coach gives him the chanche to play. he worries if he can repay the coach with a good performance and he´s scared to death to fail. his expectations is to play a perfect game but his perception of failure has an enormous impact on his performance. toughts come in his mind:if i fail anyone will think im a loser, if a play bad maybe i´ll be fired or be sent to a minor league, all the people will be disapponited of me. in his case his whole perception is directed on failure.
in his first play he misses a easy catch and his fear increases alot. and so on... his game was a failure.

 

[Alexp]

Thanks for the great responses.

Can you desensitize your SA or anxiety? (Such as exposing yourself to things you fear until you stop fearing them). It’s a valid point and fascinating and one that I’ve thought about a lot too.

Lets say for a scenario, that there’s this person that constantly worries about what others think to the point they avoid going out places unless they have to. Would desensitization work to lower the fear? In my opinion, on the surface it quite possibly could, but it probably wouldn’t be permanent. Let me try to explain more though.

Lets say that this person starts trying to face his fear of what others think about him and he starts going out all the time and doing the things he always feared. Its very likely, he will see probably see that people arnt really talking behind his back all the time like he thought they were. Or he may start to realize that they aren’t really thinking bad stuff about him at all. He will probably start to feel better and more confident and less afraid. Think about why he’s feeling less afraid though – He’s less afraid because he believes that people arn’t thinking bad thoughts about him. His core expectations, he’s perfectionism, his sensitivity are all still exactly in place…the only thing has changed is that he now believes that people arnt out to hurt him. It is a more realistic view, and it is very helpful in my opinion, but when all the core expectations stay in place, it can be difficult later on.

Lets fast forward a few months. This person is now loving life more and being less anxious and as far as he knows people like him for who he is now. But something happened today - He found out that a friend of his was trashing him behind his back and saying all sorts of terrible things! He starts panicking and freaking out because all his core expectations are all still place – nothing has changed the fact that he still values others opinions way too much. He keeps dwelling on this event over and over again to the point where he starts to doubt himself all over again and starts to think that everyone else is saying bad stuff about him again. The anxiety goes way up and he has even more difficulty going places then perhaps he ever did.

This cycle has happened to me in various degrees over the years, before I better understand how to control my core expectations and perfectionism.

The moral of this story for me is that getting out more and desensitizing can very well be helpful, but it has to be accompanied by something more than simple desensitizing if you want a long term result.

Its almost like a ticking timebomb. You may lower your anxiety for a quite a long time, but eventually something will go wrong (human life) and if your preceptions and expectation are all still in place, it will blow up and might put you all the way back to where you started (if not further back).

You have to also change your expectations of yourself and/or others depending on where the pain and focus is. If the person in the above scenario could have effectively worked on allowing imperfection and allowing the idea that its okay if someone doesn’t like it, it probably wouldn’t have fallen apart so much.

 

[samana]

Alex and romeno - I totally agree.

I think you (Alex) make some great points that definitely explain why in my own life and friends who have had similar issues, we seem to improve, but we can easily fall back again. I don't think anxiety is actually a problem now...I think its something under that, that drives anxiety to too high a level. We pay attention to the anxiety instead of what perceptions in our mind (that are out of whack) created that anxiety like you say.

Perhaps we all actually have a perfectionistic disorder haha. Which causes the anxiety. No drugs treat perfectionism, I know that for sure. All the drugs I've ever took (and thats a lot, so I won't list them all), all they ever did was numb me from both 'bad' and 'good' feelings. But they didn't do anything to change my mind about how I thought of myself, others and life. That's where the problem is, and that's why meds dont really work in my opinion.

I definitely, definitely let peoples opinions have too much power and effect over me- way more importance that what should be logically warranted. In fact I don't think my opinion counts as much as someone else's in my mind. That's why I worry so much about everything too I guess, since I am always needing reassurance, etc, instead of being able to convince myself with my own opinions.

 

[tbaker818]

No drugs treat perfectionism, I know that for sure. All the drugs I've ever took (and thats a lot, so I won't list them all), all they ever did was numb me from both 'bad' and 'good' feelings. But they didn't do anything to change my mind about how I thought of myself, others and life. That's where the problem is, and that's why meds dont really work in my opinion.

I've been reading this whole thread and I have a ton of thoughts on all of it. Too many to respond right now, really. But I feel the need to chime in here because like someone said earlier - we're all different in terms of what has worked for us. Medication is no exception.

samana - It's great that you added "in my opinion," but I want to take that a step further because medication gets a bad rap a lot of the time and yet it's been of great help to me. At one time, I was having panick attacks speaking amongst groups. 3 days after taking 10mg/day of Celexa (that's 1/2 of the smallest dose sold), I felt like a different person. A few weeks later I had a major presentation I had to give and I nailed it. Once I was properly diagnosed, I was perscribed two more (I have major ADD and some OCD as well). Neither were a surprise. I have to credit these some for helping me to get control of my thoughts. I've eliminated a ton of negativity and I've changed many beliefs that really weren't warranted.

These things weren't exactly automatic. I still had to work at them but as my therapist explained... medication, if you're chemically disadvantaged, will help to level the playing field.

In response to this thread, I've found that changing my thinking has permanently altered the course of my life - and yet most of the change has been in my head at this point! I used to fall into the trap of hoping that future successes would help me change my thinking. I think we all need some of that at some point. But I also believe that your thinking prepares you to get the most out of each success AND each failure, and that's what really drives your growth. You must have the ability to process events in a way that benefits you rather than perpetuating the problem.

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Hi,
I've been following this thread with interest, because as I wrote earlier it raises questions I've been in the process of asking my self for a while.

I think the stand-out question to answer here is:-
'Why are perceptions so hard to change?'
and also, along with this, maybe:-
'If changing our perceptions/expectations is just plain common sense, then why is it so hard to follow through with?'

...You see, I've been interested in such ideas for a few years now. My interest all began when I had another set of values/perceptions that in causing me trouble, I needed to change. ...And guess what: I honeslty completely changed my perception. I even figured-out some of the essential steps involved in the process. ...But I still don't know enough, and am not clear enough, because I haven't succeeded yet in overcoming social anxiety; and to what extent I may have, I'm not wholly confident regarding how far I've come and exactly what to do next.

One of the ideas I have for answering the above question(s) is that when a way of feeling-thinking is so very natural to the person, it is pretty much an immediate response. For example, something in our surroundings triggers a sensitive reaction from us, and before we really have the awareness to pause and notice this, we are in the midst of reacting to it.

Because I think that, as with overcoming any addiction/dependency, a person always starts from the position of being at a disadvantage -of being at the mercy of their impulses/reactions. ...Yet, why is it that every now and then someone gets the message. Why do some people overcome these hard challenges to their wellbeing whilst other people, though they have an understanding of what to do, they still are stuck in the vicious circle of repeated experience?

And Alex, I'll address an aspect of your post that rang a bell for me. ...When I was getting through a previous difficulty, one of the conclusions that I came to was that my idea of what was 'right', 'perfect', and even 'reality' had changed. I in fact used the same words you used, being that I decided that what was 'imperfect' was 'perfect'. ...This is a really massive change in a person's mind and what they base their values on and also their sense of themselves.

I also think that Romeno has been suggesting this... I notice that the person that makes it through something no-longer views their unfavorable position as being 'wrong'. They find the part of anxiety that is high sensitivity, for example, and they see this as perfect in and of it self. Then their perception has changed. (Some lucky people experience this moment of clarity; some refer to it as 'the alcoholic's moment of clarity', others experience it for example when they were being tortured in prison, and to me it's spoken about in the Bible as the Apocalypse -when someone has found 'the end' or their own personal limits)

from that moment on the person that experiences this keeps going because they have found the 'perfect'/'good' part within what their mind was seeing as 'evil' or not existing. But this person still needs to strive to change their emotions, to bring into balance their feelings with this new form/perception for defining themself. The difference is that they don't give up on seeing this new perception because they truly believe in it. They no-longer view their disadvantaged position as negative. So even before they have trained their emotions to fit this new view of things, when they suffer the results of not being in perfect harmony with this new perception, they still are unfased.

Anyhow, the above is my attempt at trying to understand why it is that I still haven't conquered my anxiety, and also why I am not so clear as to when I am doing well and when I am not doing well -I don't believe that I clearly distinguish the difference between these two yet.

 

[Alexp]

Miss Muffet,

Very insightful response. I do have a couple thoughts.

It’s a fascinating question you bring up. I think the question posed is - If you no longer see yourself in a wrong position, will that help you get you through it? If you see for yourself, for example, that your sensitivity is good/perfect then you wont ever see yourself as bad or wrong? And maybe stop the pain that way.

Essentially I do agree with that. That is the end goal – the perfect vision. But, I think it might be a little discouraging for some people to look at it that way because it’s so completely different to how most of us think now. A lot of people may think about it and believe that its impossible to get there, and not even worth trying. It might be the final goal for all of us, but, I believe, we need to take baby steps to get there. Even if we never get to that point, there’s still so much we can do to help ourselves by just working towards it.

That’s why I try advocating the allowance of imperfection. Only when we start to realize that we are imperfect, can we actually strive to reach greater perfection, peace and happiness. Its rather ironic actually. I think it’s the same thing you are talking about though. Allow yourself to accept who you are, including what you believe to be wrong about yourself and you can start to see how the reinforced pain gets lower, which in turn lowers the anxiety.

I’m not necessarily talking about a massive perception change that hits you all at once. I’m talking about simply reminding yourself everyday that you arnt perfect (if the pain and focus is on yourself) - and that its okay to make mistakes..that its okay to be sensitive…that its okay to be who you are. That’s something anyone can do and the results actually build off the previous day because pain and anxiety works off being reinforced. So even if you do a tiny bit every so often, it can make a long term difference in my opinion.

Keep in mind that anxiety is there to try to change us in some way. If you focus on yourself too much (guilt) and beat yourself up, it means that you internally believe you arnt doing what you believe is right. If you can lower your expectations a bit and tell yourself that imperfection is okay, that what you do is the best you can do. You will see (as I personally have) how you feel less pain, less of reaction and ultimately less anxiety. The final goal may be to see certain things about yourself as perfectly good, but we can all start out by telling ourselves that who we are and what we do is ‘just fine’ or ‘okay’ and go from there. We just need to work at it a little bit at a time.

 

[Alexp]

You brought up another excellent point too when you talk about spontaneous painful reactions. I think in general certain traits, such as sensitivity, create knee jerk reactions no matter what we do. We are born sensitive which means we react to things around us stronger. The initial reaction isn’t what causes the pain and anxiety though. Its when we start to think about that reaction that it can become a problem.

For example, Let say that you just heard that a friend said something bad about you. You immediately react to that, its not pain at first, its just that your body knows that something wrong just happened. Something just changed in your life that you didn’t like, and now your mind searches to see if it can fix it or accept it in someway. If you are more of a guilt oriented person, you may start to think that you did something wrong in reference to this person. You keep telling yourself that you shouldn’t have said or done this. Maybe you tell yourself that you are stupid or wrong for making this person say something bad about you. If you do this, this will lead to greater anxiety next time as an effort to self correct. Think about where the pain really is though. Its when you start thinking about it and keep beating yourself up for doing something wrong. Its not the initial knee jerk reaction, its how you deal with the reaction that determines the pain and anxiety.

Maybe you get mad at the person instead and start hating that person and thinking of ways to get back at them. Its essentially pain and anxiety as well that is being created in order to push you to try to change that person in someway.

We may not have too much control over our initial reactions, but we can learn to better deal with it when we start analyzing it. When you start beating yourself up for not doing something right, you can stop right there and tell yourself that you did the best you could and its not your fault, not something to dwell on and move on from there. This will lower the reinforced pain which leads to anxiety and self correction.

Granted, its not always quite that simple though, your mind wants some resolution. It can be difficult to tell yourself to forget about it when its perceived to be a big thing in your mind. Its like your mind is looping non-stop asking if you should change yourself(guilt), if you should try to change another(anger) or accept that you cant change the situation (sadness). When it is a big thing, my best advice is to help the process as quick as possible, by seeing realistically if there’s anything I can do to change myself (if you really did something really wrong) or if you believe that someone else did something really wrong – tell them so or write a letter or something. If the situation was just simply a bad situation and something bad just happened that can no longer be changed, then maybe a little sadness and acceptance is needed to adjust and move on with your life.

The key is not to dwell on it continually where you keep telling yourself that you should have done this or that when its unfair to yourself. If its unfair, you will never be able to self correct, and the guilt and anxiety will just keep getting stronger and stronger.

 

[blubs]

hey Alex...just wanted to say..I liked what you said in your origional post..I haven't seen loads of therapists...or read loads of books...& am happy to take on board anything positive about overcoming SA.

 

[MarCPatt]

interesting topic

 

[samana]

I've been reading this whole thread and I have a ton of thoughts on all of it. Too many to respond right now, really. But I feel the need to chime in here because like someone said earlier - we're all different in terms of what has worked for us. Medication is no exception.

samana - It's great that you added "in my opinion," but I want to take that a step further because medication gets a bad rap a lot of the time and yet it's been of great help to me.

I totally understand. I guess I didn't really make myself clear or expand on my medication thoughts very much in my previous post. I agree that medication can sometimes be exceptionally helpful for leveling the playing field. I have experienced this myself. I think that to some degree, it doesn't actually 'change chemicals' in our minds, as much as we do while we are on the medication. Medications all dull the senses- including the need to feel anxious or upset, etc. This can bring us to a different state of mind, and help us to realize some things. I've definitely experienced this myself. One major thing medication helped me with was my difficulty seperating my own emotions from everyone else around me, and my responsibilities to others vs stuff that I did not need to be concerned about (things I can't change in others, etc). When I was really drugged up, this part of my perception relaxed, and I was able to make sense of these things, and realize that (in my extra relaxed state of mind) that this was a better more 'correct' perception, so it stuck. So I can see what you are saying . I think medicine can be helpful in situations where we just need to be put into a relaxed/altered state of mind in order to sort of view our lives 'outside of ourselves' so to speak. I guess my only problem is that we are not made to understand that this is what medication is best for - usually its advocated as a cure- or a corrector of chemicals in the brain, when really it is more what I've just described. In the end, it is our own perception, logic, moments of enlightenment, etc, that are the changers (whether we are on medication or not).

 

[samana]

I really liked both your posts alexp and littlemissmuffet... this whole thread is just great

 

[romeno82]

I’m talking about simply reminding yourself everyday that you arnt perfect

and i would add:

and realizing that none pretends yourself to be perfect. in fact the vast majority of people struggle with self-doubts, has alot of insecurities wich they try to hide and im not talking about SA people. what SA-free people dont do is worring so much about the consequencies that could happen if other might see their insecurities. THERE ARE TONS OF INSECURE PEOPLE OUT THERE. But our society dont see well weaknesses. so everyone try to hide it. or in a worst case be ashamed of.

what SA-free people dont do is worring so much about the consequencies that could happen if others might see their insecurities.

try something out:

write down on a paper what would be the consequencies if people would se your weknesses. what you write down is the sick part of your perception. cos in reality maybe people will talk about it for 20 seconds and then forget you right away. and you could use eft on it.

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Alex wrote:-

You brought up another excellent point too when you talk about spontaneous painful reactions. I think in general certain traits, such as sensitivity, create knee jerk reactions no matter what we do. We are born sensitive which means we react to things around us stronger. The initial reaction isn’t what causes the pain and anxiety though. Its when we start to think about that reaction that it can become a problem.

Muffet says:-
I really like what you've said here. You're last two sentences I think are what a 'new perception' is all about.

...Do you know that this idea that what is imperfect is now seen as perfect is what I believe things like self-realisation are all about-? I understand the word 'perception' usually by using the word 'God' ...I won't get into why, but when I was getting through a past difficulty, I read the Bible a lot and one of the things that Jesus went around saying was that he was both the Son of Man and the Son of God. -I take this to mean that what is Godlike, and perfect, is human and imperfect. -Which is essentially what the concept of 'perception' and how a person looks at things deciding their reality, is all about. ...He also states that: "Everyone who makes himself great will be humbled and everyone who humbles himself will be made great".

Also, I once saw an interview with an author who used to be homeless with a heroine addiction. Among many amazingly openminded and wise things that he said, when asked what he would say to the younger version of himself, he said something like: "Probably nothing. Because who I am today is a result of who I was before..." ...If this is the outook of a person who has overcome a problem/dependency, then obviously such a perspective of the young drug-addicted man is what makes him now the older drug-free man.

And your last two sentences above are basically about not looking upon our mistakes as 'evil' or 'wrong' or 'weak' but only as undesirable regarding who we want (and believe ourselves) to be. ...you can see how this dynamic works in all 'vicious circles' -when we see something as 'bad' and want to avoid it often we put it more firmly in place and keep experiencing it over and over again. There is a saying in spirituality thatL "What you resist persists and what you look at disappears."
Jesus also said that 'your eyes are a light for the body' -so if we see anxiety as 'wrong' or 'evil', which we naturally are inclined to because of the pain of it, we try to stop something but just make it stronger. To call something evil is like wanting it to go away, and trying to stop it. But I see anxiety as being our sensitivity wanting to be allowed freedom to be it self within the world. And our standards are like a parent that is too strict on a child (sensitivity) that needs the kind of protection that simultaneously allows it to breathe -like our inner child is scared to be it self so it just rebels because it can do nothing else.

Notice that with sexuality, the more we call it wrong and see it as so, the greater the desire becomes. ...'Tough love' is really difficult because it sees a part of the person that is purely good, perfect good that is equally bad and good (as in a new perception: imperfection is perfect) And a part of believing in this in order to fulfill this vision is to accept all the negative aspects, all the mistakes.

One thing with the way that God judges is that there is no limit to tolerance and acceptance. Where there is bad there is good, because this is the new perception of what is good and who a person is.

And your ideas that 'the sensitivity came before the anxiety', and that we cannot change our sensitivity but we can bring balance to our anxious state by altering our perceptions (about ourselves in relation to others) - are all stating that our sensitivity is perfect in and of it self, but that because we are in a state of anxiety, our sensitivity needs to adapt better to the outside world in order to both tolerate and deal with what would otherwise be threats for it.

This 'ideal vision' that you state is the aim, and I think I can see why you say that it should be encouraged, I think is what allows us to properly get past our 'mistakes' so that we don't continue to react off of them. That, as you've put it: the vicious circle and our high sensitivity causes us to react before we have the awareness and control over these. Yet, we have to work backwards: just as we would need to no-longer see anxiety and high sensitivity as 'mistakes' or 'imperfections', but that they are part of a bigger picture of ourself. Because if we see them as 'bad' we haven't really let go of our old perception. And so when we do something (ie: react strongly or with nervous anxiety) that we wish to modify and no-longer do so much we still see this as 'bad' as 'imperfect'.

When I had a view of a new perception, I saw how to look at things differently, and this happened to me in a flash that I still remember. But before I could put that vision, this new perspective, into making a new reality for my self, I had to work to get my self out from where I was. ...eventhough 'where I was' didn't matter to me anymore. Since it is akin to facing death and seeing that you still exist. And what you thought was life (a drug, a dependeny, even the perceptions behind anxiety) you see as death. And because you are past it you see it as an illusion and you aren't fooled by it. ...So that when you go through the motions from that point on, your emotions still try to fool you into seeing the same old perception, but you don't believe it anymore. You keep persisting despite your 'mistakes' because to you there is no such thing anymore as a 'mistake' it is just something that you do not wish to experience anymore.

You've found your own emotional limit -and this is very difficult and I think requires such luck to experience. ...and because it requires such luck for the dynamics to be just so for a person to lose their fear (of death, loss, and the belief that their perception/anxiety will save them) what you say about seeing what is 'imperfect' as 'perfect' is the same new perception that does get a person out of a situation they no-longer wish to be in. ...This is a very hard thing to do. (Jesus said that few make it into the kingdom of heaven, and therefore, completely change their perspective) but believing and thinking in this new way as often and as much as possible would get a person pretty close -and considering how few people actually get there, getting close isn't too bad an effort.

...A lot of the above is me trying to remember how I looked at things. I do find changing perception pretty hard, but I try to do it anyway if for no other reason than there is nothing else to do.

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

just one other thing:-

I read in a book that Jesus' power to heal anyone he wanted to came from his belief that all people were perfect; that this way of perceiving people allowed him to create change and heal people. Like seeing the whole of a person already and bringing this out.

 

[Alexp]

Extremely well thought out post, MissMuffet. I’m personally not too religious, but what you’ve written is very insightful for both the religious and non-religious alike.

I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said as well. Its so true that when you see yourself or something you do as wrong or evil or dirty (and you cant retify it), then the pain and anxiety will continue to cycle non-stop. Its especially true when the conflict is simple human nature or some kind of need. The most obvious is sex and sexuality. The more you see it as wrong or evil in some way, the more you will focus on it non-stop with incredible pain and anxiety. Your body believes it to be right, but if someone’s been raised to believe that its wrong or dirty, then the anxiety conflict will fight it out non-stop until one side wins temporarily and then it simply starts all over again.

The same with social anxiety too. If you see yourself as wrong or evil or that you learn to believe that social interaction is evil or wrong, then the pain and anxiety will also cycle continually. We all have an inherent need to feel loved or be socially respected, so the conflict is set up when you see yourself or the situations as wrong or evil.

That’s why I think acceptance and allowance for imperfection is so important. When you start to focus on what is wrong or evil then you will start to feel the pain and anxiety.

I don’t want to confuse the situation, but its interesting to look at one’s mind and see what is going on when you see something as wrong or evil. If for example, you hurt someone and you really did feel that it was wrong, you will feel extremely guilty about it - your mind will dwell on it and you will obviously feel a lot of pain and guilt. The next time you are in a similar situation, the anxiety will kick in and you will remember the pain you felt when you hurt that person, so it will be less likely that you will hurt someone else again. This typically is a one time adaptation process that happens to us all the time and its quite normal. It probably wont cycle because you have successfully changed something about yourself and there’s no underlying conflict of need or desire to continually cause conflict and pain. Notice that now, you no longer see yourself as a bad person either - you’ve adapted and changed.

Now think about what happens when its sex or sexuality (if you see it as bad or evil). The same conflict will happen every time you get any sexual desire or urge. Maybe one time you do have sex, but then you feel so incredibly guilty afterwards. You set yourself up for anxiety next time. When the situation or desire comes again, you will feel anxiety as your sexual needs battle with your perception that it’s wrong. This will cycle non-stop and at no point does it rectify itself. You will continue to see yourself as wrong or dirty because the urges are always present. For some people they may even hold off any sexual act for a long time and see themselves as mostly good, but at the cost of constant extreme anxiety. Its usually a matter of time, that the desire takes over though (even for a bit) and then you see yourself as bad again and the guilt and pain and anxiety just continues.

So I do agree that the ultimate goal is to see yourself and the world around you as ‘good’ as possible. Its true that the day you look at yourself and the world and see it as perfectly good, then that’s the day you wont have any anxiety. Remember that anxiety is there to initiate some kind of change based on your perceptions and/or expectations. Realistically though, you will never see yourself or the world as perfectly good, but the more you strive towards that goal, the more you will see your anxiety lessen.

 

[Jack-B]

Mind bending posts excellent!

Just wanted to try clarify a great question which Samana raised, thanks!:

Samana wrote:

"Aren't thoughts what make us who we are in essence....a combination of all our thoughts create how we see ourselves and the world? In that case, wouldn't detaching from negative thoughts, detach us from part of ourself?"

I can only give a very general answer to this because many mistakes can be made of what our self is. There are two ways our self exists. How it appears to our mind and how it really exists. So if you wish for a more detailed in depth answer send me a PM and i will help you identify further. I cannot skillfully give any more, but hopefully you may doubt who you are enough to continue to send me a PM, that goes for anyone else who is interested.

There are many levels of mind and many types of mind.

The basic function of the mind is to know or understand objects of the mind, percieved by mind.

The function of a self or 'I' is to perform actions and experience results of those actions. So who we 'think and identify' we are is based on previous actions that are experienced as effects in our mind. This is the basis for our personality and why everyone is different because we all have different experiences and create different actions.

Yes, negative thoughts shape who we 'think we are' and we relate to our self in this way, identifying with our anxiety say. These negative mental actions and intentions are perceived by our mind. So who we are is conceived by the mind based upon our experience, we hold an identity.
So if we never identified our self with negativity (dirt of our mind) we would see a different self, a cleaner self, a purer person who exeperiences less negativity because it simply would not appear to our mind.

We have freedom of thought, because we create our own world.

Jack

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Hi again Alex,

I had a few things that I had jotted down that I wanted to discuss, but for now I wanted to say that... thinking about changing my expectations and accepting imperfections seems do be doing me a world of good.

I woke up this morning and the thought occurred that I just can't be bothered any more with anxiety. It seems to me that it's like a kind of drug. And, like a drug addict, it started off as something good that made me feel good -it protected me from bad reactions from others, allowing me to watch my actions etc... And it is almost like how a drug addict is emotionally convinced that they need to drug -and that coming off it is painful; or, when the drug is anxiety, you think that you need it to stop the pain of socially failing. Then you notice that not only do you fail more because of it and it stops having its positive effect; but you don't want it anymore. Anxiety is worse than failing.
And somehwere along the lines, being careful and anxious about how I behave has become worse than behaving inadequately or wrongly.
And now, it is like the 'drug' is death and giving it up is life. But for a long time I couldn't make the connection. Now I feel that I am just sick of anxiety. I'd rather embarass my self to hell and back then be burdened with the fear and anxiety of experiencing this. ...sort of like my idea of hell has turned out to be different to what I thought.

So yeah: bring on the mistakes, failures, embarassments, night after night with little or no social life, no job, feeling nervous and embarassed, feeling uptight to a degree around strangers or people I do not know yet -I feel that none of this is so bad as fussing and worrying about my self and how I behave/'perform'. ...who cares? All of these things have already happened and worrying about them didn't stop it. So I'll stop worrying, since I'm not afraid anymore about 'failing' just so long as I don't bloody have anxiety.

For now that will do for me.

Muffet.

 

[Jack-B]

Muffet

Your posts always make me smile.

Anxiety is like a drug, why? Because like all drugs there is an element of seeking happiness in it, dependency and desire. No one finds happiness in anxiety, but those who suffer from sp/sa are dependent on 'what others think' and a desire to be thought of in a certain way. There are many other desires linked with anxiety but these are the main ones. We dont consciously think, "if i do this or act like this i will be happy" or "if people see what im really like they wont like me so i wont be happy" these thoughts are quite subtle but induce anxiety because our drug like habit in our mind works in a routine habitual way. Attached to the idea (drug like habit) that happiness can be found in the mind of someone else when it can only ever be found within our own mind. This is how our mind becomes deceived and like a hallucenagenic drug it distorts our reality of ourself and our world.

Jack



As you say