Unmasking the shame of anxiety

I got a call from a woman the other day who wanted to talk about her panic attacks and general anxiety. She is in her early thirties and lives with her husband and kids in a small town.

She told me how anxiety and panic attacks were destroying her quality of life and everyday was turning into a pitch battle.

She used to travel all around the world for work, but today she finds it hard to step out the front door for fear of having a panic attack. She has two small kids and they have needs to be met. She has to get over this for their sake. That’s why we are are talking.

I asked her if she had told anyone else about  anxiety problem besides her husband and doctor.

She explained that she had let a few friends know, but in general she kept it to herself, fearing others might start to gossip about it behind her back. I then asked her what it was that really troubled her the most about her anxiety.

She got a little irritated and said “haven’t you been listening to me? I cant leave my home because of this and I have kids to look after. What could be worse than that?”

“No, I get that”, I said “but what REALLY troubles you about your anxiety?”

There was a long silence. Then after a moment she said, “not leaving home is just the half of it, the other stuff I could never admit to anyone, -I am too ashamed of it”

“Well try me”  I said “I am pretty much a stranger to you and I don’t imagine we will ever meet in person. You have nothing to lose.”

“Okay…so deep down I fear I am losing my mind. Like I am losing  touch with reality. I am not present with my children because I am the whole time thinking about how I am thinking, if that makes any sense?”

“Sometimes I have such disturbing anxious thoughts  of a sexual or violent nature that I truly shock myself” she said as her voice broke with emotion.

Then another brief silence…

 ”Random ideas flash across my mind that only a deranged  person would think of…”

“For example?” I asked

“Well, just this morning, I was feeding my little girl and I had this violent thought come to mind. It disturbed me so much I had stop feeding her and lock myself in the bath room for five minutes because I was shaking so much. I mean what kind of mother would think such a thing?”

“I am so ashamed and scared of myself. I would never act on these thoughts but how could I even think them in the first place! That’s what really upsets me the most, I feel I have no control over it”

“So I bet you think I am nuts right?”

“No not at all”, I said, “in fact I think you are perfectly normal. You are a sane normal person suffering from an overly anxious mind mixed with exhaustion and an active imagination. It is perfectly normal. It is not one bit pleasant but it is normal”

I told her that people can often admit to their doctor or close friends about the panic attacks or general anxiety, but they rarely admit to the things that really upset them the most about their anxiety. They hide their greatest fear so deep and suffer in silence because they fear being told they have a real serious problem.

It is normal for example, for such people to be afraid to pick up a kitchen knife in case they go nuts and stab someone.

Or they get anxious at times behind the wheel of a car, for fear of swerving uncontrollably into coming traffic.

Or they hate to stand on a balcony in case they suddenly decide to jump off it.

What these people do not realize is that what they are going through is much more common than they think. These intrusive thoughts are fueled by a cocktail of high anxiety, exhaustion and an overactive imagination. A lot of people suffer from them (even people you know) but they would never admit it. These type of thoughts come with a feeling of deep shame for even having such thoughts in the first place.

In order to end shame you have to unmask it.

You have to admit it first clearly to yourself. You need to be clear in your own mind about what it is that you could never admit to another. Then the healing can occur.

If this is applicable to you and your anxiety, then post anonymously (or with your first name) about it below. When you start to unmask this shame it lessens it’s power over you.

Posting your story will also help others to open up about their own story. So much of getting over all anxiety is about learning to normalize what feels totally abnormal. When you normalize anxiety you drop your resistance to it and that in turn releases the inner tension you feel around it.

If you do not want to post about it, then at least write it down on paper somewhere and expose it to the light of day.

Unmask it now so in time you can gracefully let it go.

Barry

If you want to know more you can continue here

How To Activate Your Subconscious Mind And Unlock Its Potential

In all of us there is more potential than anyone every can use.
It is said that humans only use about 5% of their brain capacity.

What if we could tap into more of this, start using 6%, 7% or even 10-15%. If we could we would be way ahead of our peers.

We are yet to discover how to use and utilize this enormous amount of potential we have but there are ways to tap into it once in a while.
Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, figured out that we have a subconscious part of our minds. If we can tap into the subconscious mind and use its powers to help us in our success we will dramatically increase our chances.

How do you use it?

Over the years many have hypothesized about how to use this immense power and most are in agreement that it is working all the time. It doesn’t stop to sleep or rest, it works 24 hours a day.

So if you can program your subconscious mind to work on the things you want it to you will be using a lot of your potential on the exact things you want to improve.

Activating the subconscious
The best time to do this is when you are going to sleep. When you are sleeping your conscious mind doesn’t get in the way and you don’t have the rush of new images that comes with being awake.

Before you go to bed, write down the most important thing you wish to improve. It can be a goal, a skill, a habit, anything. Visualize it, think about it, look at it and see yourself as the master of that skill or having accomplished that goal.

Let this process take at least 5 minutes and focus on it intently.
Then put it out of your mind and go to sleep.

All night your subconscious mind will be working on this skill, finding ways to improve or practicing the skill or habit while you sleep.

The next morning you will already have improved in the skill or have a rush of new ideas to help you accomplish your goal and new motivation to go after it.

This simple technique activates your subconscious mind in a way so profound that it can make a astonishing difference to your future.

//Daniel

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Everything in Life Has Potential

It is a tragedy to know that with over five billion people on this planet today, only a minute percentage will experience a significant fraction of their true potential. Perhaps you are a candidate for contributing to the wealth of the cemetery. Your potential was not given for you to deposit in the grave. You must understand the tremendous potential you possess and commit yourself to maximizing it in your short lifetime. What is potential, anyway?

Potential is dormant ability, reserved power, untapped strength, unused success, hidden talents, capped capability.

All you can be but have not yet become. All you can do but have not yet done. How far you can reach but have not yet reached. What you can accomplish but have not yet accomplished. Potential is unexposed ability and latent power. It is also important that you never let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life that never realized its full potential. You must decide today not to rob the world of the rich, valuable, potent, untapped resources locked away within you. Potential never has a retirement plan.

To simplify this concept let us look at one of the most powerful elements in nature, the seed. if I held a seed in my hand and asked you, "What do i have in my hand?" what would you say? Perhaps you would answer what seems to be the obvious, a seed. However, if you understand the nature of a seed, your answer would be fact but not truth. 

The truth is i hold  a forest in mt hand. Why? Because in every seed there is a tree, and in every tree there is fruit or flowers with seeds in them. And these seeds also have trees that have fruit that  have seeds, that have trees that have fruit that have seeds, etc. In essence, what you see is not all there is. That is potential. Not what is, but what could be. God created everything with potential, including you. he placed the seed of each thing within itself (Genesis 1:12), and planted within each person or thing He created the ability to be much more than it is at any one moment. Thus, everything in life has potential.

If you want to know more can continue here

Why Do Guys Leave Women They Really Like?

Hey Claire,
This guy I’ve been seeing for a YEAR seemed to really like me, then out of the blue he totally disappeared. We had 3 dates one week (3!!) and the next week he was “too busy” to see me. After a month of unanswered calls, texts that were ignored, and a few drinking/swearing/crying jags with my gf’s, I finally realized he’s gone for good. But I WISH I knew WHY?? We were good in bed, we had fun together, and I would have sworn he really really liked me. Nothing was going wrong!!! Any ideas?  – Cammie

Hey Cammie, 

Good gawd, that hurts. And he was a douche for not behaving like a man and telling you straight up that he was leaving; instead he just slunk out like a rat, feeling absolutely no shame at his little boy behavior. (Well, he may have felt shame, but he certainly didn’t let it move him to do the right thing.)

There are multiple reasons men disappear on women they really like, and while I can’t say which one it was in your particular situation, Cammie, I can make a couple of good guesses…

1. Men leave women they adore because they fear the next step.
This is the main kind of situation you find happening when everything is going GREAT and then he suddenly disappears without a trace.

He got creeped out by his own enjoyment of the relationship, because he knows on some level that he doesn’t want to have a long term relationship, doesn’t want to head toward exclusivity, isn’t ready to commit to one woman.

And yes, it’s a wee bit insane, because it’s clear things are going well. Smashingly, even!

Guys aren’t always the Tony Stark type they imagine themselves in their minds; sometimes they’re naked little kittens who feel they’ve been left out on the doorstep in the cold. You’re better off without this guy, because he has some emotional growing left to do. You need a man who can stick with you through sun and snow, and he ain’t it. Better to know it now.

2. Men leave women they adore because they get fresh, hot offers.
This one stings a bit, but it’s nonetheless true: sometimes guys leave because they already know what their relationship with you is like, and they’re being petitioned by new women.

The new woman isn’t necessarily “hotter” than you are – but she is unknown, and thereforemysterious and intriguing to him. And since he doesn’t already “have” her, his chase mechanism kicks in and he’s off and running after her like an bank robber running for the border.

So what do you do about it?
It’s easy to develop a crazy fear that a guy will leave just when everything is going great. And that’s why you should NEVER decide that a particular man is “the one” until you knowexactly how he behaves in a situation like this.  He may not be at the same place you are when it comes to his willingness to commit. Therefore…

Don’t be exclusive until you are dating a man who is ready to be exclusive with you.
In other words, keep dating. Don’t let any single man believe you’re all his unless he has decided he’s going to be all yours, too.

Do be clear about your limited availability.
Don’t let a guy think you’ll wait around for him forever. Know your own timeline and find a way to communicate that with him in a calm, non-threatening way.

Something like this:

“Yeah, I broke it off with Nick because we dated for two years and I was pretty sure we weren’t going to ever become serious. I’m still looking for that man I want to build a life together with.”

Or:

“I probably wouldn’t date a guy for more than a year if I knew it wasn’t serious.”

Or:

“A year is plenty of time to find out whether or not one particular guy is going to be the one I’m willing to stop seeing other men for.”

Hang in there, Cammie! There are lots of men out there who will be thrilled to win a woman like you. Your ex has lost you for good, and eventually he may look back and see that he made a mistake in giving you up.

Hopefully he learns how to be a real man (and communicate directly with the women in his life), but meanwhile, you’re on to find a real man of your own. Best to you!

If you want to know more can continue here

You Experienced A Social Anxiety Attack?

Most people don’t know the difference between a social anxiety attack and a real panic attack.

In this article I will inform you on what the difference is between the two and I’ll also give you some advice on how to deal with, and overcome a social anxiety “attack”.

A Social Anxiety Attack

I was about 17 years old and was at a house party of one of my friends. She was about to leave the country for a long trip to a few countries in South America. Because of this it was one of those parties that, even though I wanted to, I definitely could not avoid…

It was the beginning of the party and I was trying to get drunk as soon as possible so I could feel a bit more at ease. We were standing outside the house in sort of a circle.

The subject of conversation went to sex. I wasn’t participating because I tried to avoid these conversations as I was still a virgin. But I couldn’t help but overhearing someone asking my friend if I was still a virgin.

To which my friend replied that she had to ask it to me personally…

People were watching and listening to the girl asking my friend about my (lack of) sexual experience and at the moment the girl turned to me and asked me if I was still a virgin.

All attention was on me…

That was when I experienced a social anxiety attack.

Which is basically a state of heightened anxiety and an adrenaline rush that accompanies it.

This heightened anxiety causes you to experience an abundance of

social anxiety symptoms and your mind “goes blank”.

Now a social anxiety attack feels really intense. And you want to get away from the situation as fast as possible.

This is where it is similar to a panic attack.

When you have a panic attack, you experience some of the same things as when you experience a social anxiety attack.

You have a very, very intense feeling of anxiety and you want to get away from the situation as fast as possible.

Where Social Anxiety Attack And Panic Attack Are Different

The big difference with experiencing a panic attack, is that you very strongly believe that the “attack” you experience means that there’s something physically wrong with you.

While when you experience a social anxiety “attack” you merely believe there’s something emotionally wrong with you. You fear becoming embarrassed and are overwhelmed by emotions. Emotions that you try to fight.

You might think “I’m panicking”, but you don’t believe you are going to die of physical ailments.

In a panic attack however, people fear that they are having a heart attack, that they’re about to lose all control, or that they’re turning crazy.

Some believe that because they can’t catch their breath they’re suffocating. Or that the dizziness and “unreal” feeling they experience means that they have a terrible undiagnosed illness.

These people with a panic attack are only imagining this however, because when they go to the hospital for check-ups they find that they are perfectly healthy. It is the anxiety in the panic attack that causes them to think like that.

So the big difference between a social anxiety attack and a panic attack is that the people that have a panic attack fear they have a physical, medical disease.

And when you have a social anxiety attack you don’t believe this. You just experience a lot of social anxiety symptoms and feel very intense anxiety.

My Advice For Dealing With A Social Anxiety Attack

It is difficult to give good advice for dealing with this.

What happens is your anxiety is extremely high. And techniques with releasing your emotions don’t work that fast when you are in the moment, experiencing a full-blown attack.

The best you can do is while you are having the attack is to accept that you are having it. Don’t fight it.

Fighting it makes you get entangled in all the emotions and negative thinking and makes the intensity of your anxiety stay for longer because you are “putting oil on the fire”.

Just try to breath deeply and tell yourself that it’s OK. Assure yourself that it’s just an intense emotion and that it will subside quickly.

Accept that where you are right now, having a social anxiety attack, is where you are right now. From here on you can work forward to solving your social anxiety.

The overall best advice I can give you is to get help in solving your social phobia. And to use all the techniques, mindsets, attitudes, advice and strategies on this site.

Work on overcoming your social phobia with all the power you have in you. Don’t give up until you have achieved your goal and it’s inevitable you will eventually reach your goal.

“When life knocks you down you have two choices- stay down or get up”

Tom Krausse

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE CAN CONTINUE HERE

Symptoms and Finding Help – Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are something that affects a huge percentage of females and males throughout the world that are worried about their body image and do not go about the safest route in obtaining the body that they want. Bulimia nervosa is one of the most common eating disorders that are out there. Just what is this? Those that have bulimia nervosa will find themselves binge eating at certain points in their life, then doing all that they can do to avoid gaining weight. For example, they may make themselves vomit, or they may simply exercise until they are to the point of exhaustion. Those that have this disorder find themselves craving food though they want to maintain the body weight that they have. And in most studies it was found that when someone does go on a binge that they could consume around three or five thousand more calories than what they actually need. And when this happens, the person either makes themselves vomit or they start an exercise routine that a professional athlete would not even compete with.

So how can you tell if you or a loved one has a problem with bulimia nervosa? One of the tell tale signs is that the person runs to the bathroom after each meal. They will also have other signs that point to vomiting, such as they smell of this even though they may try to cover up the smell with mints or perfumes, their teeth are discolored, and the person may notice that they take a lot of laxatives or use other methods to get the extra weight off of their bodies fast. There are also those that may take diet pills to avoid overeating, then have an exercise routine in which they are always at the gym. Another big sign of having this disorder is that the person may notice that they eat a ton of food, yet they never seem to gain weight. Or they may even find that the person does not eat a normal meal, they may have times of overeating followed by basically eating nothing.

Those that have bulimia nervosa need to make sure that they get help as this routine of dangerous eating and purging habits are going to catch up with them and cause huge problems. These people are encouraged to find help with therapy in a way to learn how to eat healthy and still be the weight that is considered healthy for them. They will find that with the helps of professionals, friends and family that they can overcome this problem and live a life that is normal.

If you want to know more can go here

Eating Disorders

A study performed by researchers at the School of Psychology at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia found that exposure to idealized media images of “perfect” thin female and muscular male body types had negative effects on an individual’s own body image and body change behaviors.

One hundred thirty-three women and 93 men were assessed for body image beliefs before being exposed to the images. The researchers wanted to know how certain psychological factors predicted changes in the study participants’ emotions after being exposed.

The Eating Disorder Inventory-2, the Obligatory Exercise Questionnaire, and the strategies to increase muscles subscale of the Body Change Inventory were used to assess attitudes before image exposure. Participants were surveyed for body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin/athletic ideal, body comparison, self-esteem, depression and identity confusion.

Researchers wanted to see if attitudes in these areas made people more or less susceptible to body dissatisfaction and unhealthy body change behavior after viewing idealized images.

After being assessed, the participants were exposed to idealized thin female and muscular male models. Visual analogue scales were used to measure changes in post-exposure state body dissatisfaction, anger, anxiety and depression.

Results showed a marked increase in eating disorder symptoms in women and body dissatisfaction in men. Women appeared to be affected by their attitudes in all psychological areas assessed; men were mostly affected by psychological attitudes in internalization and body comparison. 

What’s interesting is that the women began to display a change in behavior, picking up eating disorder behavior as a result of exposure. Men simply felt badly about their own bodies, but they did not appear to turn to drastic measures as a result.

This may be because women were more affected by the state of their self-esteem than the men, which could make them more likely to “punish” their bodies as a result of dissatisfaction.

This information points to a possible need for greater media responsibility in relation to the images they portray. People also need to be educated about the role of the media and the ways in which those portrayed achieved the “ideal” bodies. Many images are airbrushed, and many models turn to unhealthy behaviors to achieve the supposedly “healthy ideal.” 

If you want to know more can go here

Does bulimia affect the way my brain works?

Having bulimia can cause your brain to start working in a different way. This has a lot to do with Endorphins, Malnutrition and Serotonin.

Endorphins

Endorphins are powerful, natural drug-like chemicals that allow you to experience pleasure, a reduction in pain and lower levels of stress.

Endorphins are natural opiates which have a very similar effect to heroin on your brain. This can explain why having bulimia can sometimes feel like an addiction. Bingeing and purging triggers waves of endorphins which helps to establish the powerful compulsions you feel when you get the urge to binge and purge.

Has bingeing and purging ever given you that ‘high’ feeling? One explanation for this is the ‘flood of endorphins’ that surge through your brain. Of course over time your brain becomes accustomed to your elevated levels of endorphins and needs more to create the same effect. This demand and reliance usually compels you to increase episodes of bingeing and purging.

The obsessive behaviour that you often experience when you have bulimia is often caused by nutritional deficiencies.

 Protein malnutrition

With restriction (remember bulimia is a form of restriction) the activity of the brain shrinks. When this happens your natural brain chemistry becomes disrupted and you can experience anxiety, depression, irritability, obsessiveness and low self esteem. This is primarily a result of protein malnutrition because the four brain chemicals that control your mood are all derived from the amino acids in protein.

Tryptophan, Serotonin and Bulimia

You have probably heard of serotonin – it is one of the most well know mood regulators. Serotonin is made from an amino acid called tryptophan. When you don’t get enough tryptophan serotonin levels can drop very low very fast. Tryptophan is just one of the nine essential proteins needed for your brain to function properly.

Regardless of your life circumstances or accomplishments, when your serotonin levels drop so do your feelings of self-esteem. As the brain continues to be starved it can only deteriorate further and become more self-critical. When this happens you become even more trapped by your bulimia.

Just as a vitamin C deficiency results in an outbreak of red spots, a tryptophan (and serotonin) deficiency results in an outbreak of obsessive and compulsive behaviour.

Of course there may be additional psychological elements in the picture too, but a low-serotonin brain is ill equipped to resolve them.

INTERESTING FACT...        

In many people a drop in serotonin and a lack of essential nutrients causes a loss of appetite, but in some people, for reasons that we don’t entirely understand the appetite and desire to binge actually increases.   

What about the evidence?

• In one study people with bulimia were deprived of the protein tryptophan. As a result their serotonin levels dropped and they binged more violently, eating and purging an average of 900 calories extra each day.
• In a separate study adding extra tryptophan to the diet reduced bulimic binges and mood problems.
• Recently it was suggested that even years into recovery, people could experience a return of their cravings, compulsions to binge and purge and mood problems after only a few hours of tryptophan depletion.

This evidence suggests that not getting enough tryptophan could actually lead to the development of bulimia.

Here at bulimia help, while we understand that there are often psychological elements to consider in relation to the development of bulimia we KNOW that taking practical steps to reverse malnutrition and vitamin and mineral deficiencies really is the main key to recovery.

If you want to know more can go here

Self-Esteem and Self-Acceptance

It seems like everywhere you look there are books and blogs and television segments on how to improve your self-esteem.  But what is self-esteem and why do we want to increase it, anyway?  Self-esteem relates to your sense of worth or excellence as a person.  To have a healthy self-esteem is to show concern or respect for yourself.  And the truth is the way we treat ourselves is the way we will allow or tolerate others to treat us.  Clearly, it is vitally important to have a healthy self-esteem so that we can treat ourselves and others in a respectful, kind, and personally responsible manner.

Self-esteem actually grows out of something called self-acceptance.  Self-acceptance is when we can accept our weaknesses or faults without an undue amount of self-punishment.  It is also when we can happily accept compliments, believe them, and acknowledge the good seen in us by others.  Many of us struggle to see the good in ourselves while focusing an inordinate amount of attention on what we perceive to be our faults or weaknesses.  How sad it is that we human beings often create stories about how and who we are, using the negatives we see, and cling to them as if they defined us absolutely, as if there was no possibility for change. 

But humans do possess free will and the ability to choose differently each day.  If you consider yourself to be a certain way, you will have created evidence in your life that you are this way.  Think of something you would like to accomplish, some big goal or dream that you have.  Now, instead of thinking of all the reasons why you can’t do it (because you are shy, or unintelligent, or lazy, or worthless, or some other imagination you have decided to believe about yourself) think of a positive trait that you know you possess.

  Let’s say you believe yourself to be bold or that you have boldness in you.  When facing a daunting task ask yourself what a bold person would do in that situation.  Now, act “as if” you were that bold person.  It will not be comfortable at first but this is okay.  You are starting the process of “fake it until you make it.”  Soon enough, as you act more boldly in all areas of your life, you self-esteem will grow.  The truth is you already possess the quality of boldness among a myriad of other positive traits.  It is just a matter of pulling it forth, and practicing it until you are comfortable.

Suggested Activity:  Grab your trusty pen and journal.  Think of a child in your life.  Think of all the characteristics he or she possesses.  Focus on the positives and write the list through the eyes of love you have for this little person.  Now, think about this.  You were a child once, and therefore possess from the day of your very birth all the amazing characteristics that you’ve just listed.  Maybe you haven’t been expressing certain characteristics on your list lately, but they are in you nonetheless.  How does knowing this change the way you see yourself? 

Be Courageous!

Dr. Todd Snyder

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4 Reasons Intelligent People Fail Socially

In my years of teaching people how to overcome their shyness and social anxiety, there’s a weird pattern that I keep noticing again and again…

…and again and again and again…

…and it really amazes me.

I Call It “The Genius Failure Paradox”

“The Genius Failure Paradox” is the tendency for UNUSUALLY intelligent people to have very LOW levels of social skills or confidence.

After contemplating this particular paradox, discussing it, and working on it for an awesome amount of time, I’d like to share my thoughts about it with you.

I assume that if you’ve read this far, then you probably see yourself as smarter than the average man or woman.

You know that you’re a little different than other people.

You probably realized at a young age that you saw things differently and thought differently than others in school…

And you’ve probably realized that your smart mind gives you an advantage over others in many areas of life…

But unfortunately, this smart mind of yours can actually be WORSE than USELESS when it comes to…

Your Social Life

By the way, I did say WORSE than useless.

It can actually be like having a hammer when you need to tighten a bolt. If you use the tool you have for the job, you’ll most likely make the situation WORSE.

Of course, it’s hard for a smart guy to even IMAGINE a situation where his smart mind could HURT his chances for success…

But trust me, this is one of those situations.

So relax, open your smart mind, and let me share with you the ten reasons why smart people fail in social situations… and what to do about it.

REASON #1: They Look For Information, Not Skills

It BLOWS MY MIND how many smart people I meet that just don’t GET IT when it comes to basic social skills.

When they want to overcome shyness or social anxiety, they look for that one magic piece of information that will let them fool other people into liking them, instead of actually becoming a genuinely outgoing person on the inside.

It’s as if they have logically reasoned that social skills are for lower beings who need to play games… and not worth the time it would take to learn them.

Social skills are just that… SKILLS.

They’re not social INFORMATION.

They’re not social THEORIES.

They’re social SKILLS.

And you don’t get them by THINKING about them. You get them by GETTING them.This means you’ll learn more by in one hour of actually getting out of the house and talking to people than you will in ten hours of “education”.

You get better by DOING. Period.

This leads me to…

REASON #2: They Think Too Much

Do you ever notice how so many people out there who are great at being confident and making conversation also happen to be…

Downright stupid!

It usually doesn’t take long to realize that the people who are the most sure of themselves also often happen to be unintelligent.

Why can people who SUCK at thinking be total ROCKSTARS when it comes to socializing?

And why do YOU, a smart person, find it so difficult to act confident when you probably deserve to do so more than most people?

It’s because making conversation and socializing can’t be “figured out” or solved by thinking.

But that’s what most shy and socially anxious people try to do.

If they can’t think of what to say, they go on thinking and thinking and thinking…

Never realizing that THINKING TOO MUCH is one of the main reasons they have a problem to begin with!

If you are standing around a group conversation, and not talking, it may be tempting to retreat into your head and get carried away in thought. You have to use some discipline to resist this temptation. Force yourself to “stay with” the conversation and stay involved with it. Once your focus is in the right place, then it becomes a lot easier to come up with things to say.

REASON #3: They Psych Themselves Out

Smart people do something that fascinates the hell out of me…

They come up with all the reasons why everything WON’T WORK when it comes to social situations.

They actually figure out why what it is that they would like to do will probably fail…They use their amazing creative imaginations to imagine all kinds of horrible pictures and scenes…

And then they use those imaginary outcomes to create negative emotions… which ultimately stop them from having success.

THEY DON’T EVEN TRY.

Now, if you’ve thought something through and come up with a good reason why it would fail, it makes sense to not do it, right?

I mean, why would you want to do things that are going to fail?

It is sound logical, but HORRIBLE thinking when it comes to the REAL WORLD… and overcoming shyness and social anxiety.

Because shy and socially anxious people have a tendency to OVERESTIMATE. You overestimate the probability that something bad will happen, and you overestimate the consequences if something bad did happen.

Usually, failure is not as big a deal as your mind makes it out to be. The little failures are necessary to improve your skills.

Using your mind to come up with all the reasons why things won’t work in this area of your life and then avoiding them … this is what leads to ULTIMATE FAILURE.

You must learn to overcome this habit if you have it.

REASON #4: They Can’t Deal With Fear And Other Emotions

A smart person’s STRENGTH is his MIND.

His WEAKNESS is often his EMOTIONS.

Smart people are often IMMOBILIZED by FEAR.

Totally stopped.

FROZEN.

And since many smart guys aren’t comfortable dealing with things they’re not good at, they just repress or RUN away from fear.

Many people would rather DIE in lonely isolation than admit that they don’t know how to deal with their emotions… or, GOD FORBID, ask for help!

Hey, I went for YEARS like this.

I know what it’s like.

But the reality is that anyone can learn to handle and even MASTER their emotions (even fear)…if they just take the time and effort to learn HOW to do it.

If this is you, then do yourself a big favor… take the time. Take the effort.

Don’t worry about whether someone else will look down on you for studying “self help.”

What matters is you doing the things that YOU need to do FOR YOU.

…I think the reason why I’m so fascinated with “The Genius Failure Paradox” is because I have had to struggle with all of these issues for a lot of years of my life.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m the smartest guy on the planet…

But, I don’t think mamma raised no fool.

And it always bothered the hell out of me that even though I was so good at figuring things out…

…I couldn’t figure out what I was missing when it came to being social.

Something tells me that you know what I’m talking about.

Well, after beating my head against the wall for a few years… trying all kinds of crazy stuff… I finally got the “bright” idea to start studying people who were “naturally” good socially.

By carefully studying what the “naturals” did in social situations… and learning how they minds worked, I began to realize that overcoming shyness and social anxiety wasn’t entirely LOGICAL.

I realized I was doing many things in a fundamentally wrong way, and the more I tried to “fix” my problems, the less progress I made.

It was only after I started to change my core personality and truly become more extroverted that I started to make progress.

Much of what I learned was very tough for me to accept… because my logical brain just didn’t want to buy into it.

It’s like that quote that goes “You cannot solve a problem at the same level of thinking which created it.”

That’s what this is like.

It took me quite a long time, but I continued to learn, test, and refine what I was learning until I personally figured out how to overcome shyness and social anxiety…

I learned how to become confident whenever and wherever…

I learned how to build a social circle of friends from scratch…

…and most importantly, I learned how to GET RID of that “empty” feeling that I carried around my whole life because I didn’t know how to not be a hermit.

And once I got this area of my own life together, I decided to start helping other shy and socially anxious people get this area of THEIR lives together.

If you want to know more can go here

End Anxious Thoughts In 4 Easy Steps

After having visited my site I can almost imagine what your repetitive anxious thought might be.

Maybe it’s a fear of:

-a panic attack
-never being free of general anxiety
-a bodily sensation that worries you
-a fear of losing control to anxiety
My name is Barry McDonagh and I have successfully taught thousands of people in over 30 different countries, how to end general anxiety and panic attacks.



Whatever your particular fear is, I want to share some tips and techniques with you over the coming days that will not only help you end these fears but also reduce your general anxiety level dramatically.

After many years of coaching people to be anxiety free, I have noticed that those who experience panic attacks or general anxiety almost always deal with the frequent occurrence of anxious thoughts.

Anxiety has a sneaky way of seeding doubt regardless of whether the fear is rational or irrational.

So what can be done for people who suffer from repetitive anxious thoughts?

To begin, lets look at how an anxious thought is powered and then I will demonstrate how to quickly eliminate the intensity of the thought.

Say for example you are going about your daily business when an anxious thought enters your mind.

Whatever the nature of the thought, the pattern that follows is usually quite predictable.

The anxious thought flashes briefly in your awareness and as it does so you immediately react with fear as you contemplate the thought. The fearful reaction you have to the thought then sends a shock-wave through your nervous system. You feel the result of that fear most intensely in your stomach (due to the amount of nerve endings located there).

Because of the intense bodily reaction to the thought you then get sucked into examining the anxious thought over and over.

The continuous fearful reaction you have to the thought, increases the intensity of the experience. The more you react, the stronger the thought rebounds again in your awareness creating more anxious shock-waves throughout your body. This is the typical cycle of anxious thoughts.

For some it feels like the anxious thoughts are hijacking their peace of mind.

Because of the reaction you are having, you may continue to spend the rest of your day thinking about the anxious thoughts you experienced.

“Why am I thinking these thoughts?” “Why can’t I shake off this eerie feeling?”

The harder you try not to think about it, the more upset you become. It is like telling someone

‘Whatever happens do not think of a pink elephant’.

Naturally enough it’s all they can think about. That’s the way our brains our wired.

So how can you eliminate these unwanted anxious thoughts?

To begin with:

-when you start to experience anxious thoughts, it is very important not to force the thoughts away.

Let the thoughts in. The more comfortable you can become with them, the better. These thoughts will never go away fully but what you can learn is to change your reaction to them.

By changing your reaction to the anxious thoughts you become free of them.

Once you establish a new way of reacting to the thoughts it does not matter if you have them or not. Your reaction is what defines the whole experience (and that applies to almost everything).

Everybody experiences fleeting thoughts that many would consider scary or crazy. The difference between most people and somebody who gets caught up in them, is that the average person sees them for exactly what they are, fleeting anxious thoughts, and casually ignores them.

The anxious person is at a disadvantage as they already have a certain level of anxiety in their system. The thoughts easily spark feelings of further anxiety which builds into a cycle of fear. You break the cycle by changing how you react to the fearful thought.

Here is an example of how to approach this:

You are enjoying the way your day is going but then all of sudden a fearful thought comes to mind.

Before you would react with anxiety to the idea and then try to force that thought out of your mind.

This time, however, say:

“That’s a fear of X. I could worry and even obsess over that but this time I’m going to do something different. I’m not going to react to it. I’m also not going to try and stop it either. I’m just going to label the thought and not react.”

Then the thought comes again with more intensity and possibly with new ‘scary’ angles you never considered. When this happens you do exactly the same. As if you were observing a cloud passing overhead, you simply

-Observe it,

-Label it (fear of whatever), then

-Watch it as it passes by with no judgment.

then

-Move your attention on to what you were doing.

Observe, Label, Watch, Move on

See the anxious thought for what it really is: -one of the thousands of fleeting sane and insane thoughts every one of us experiences daily.



If you are a more indoors type of person then instead of thinking of the thoughts like clouds passing in the sky, you might try imagining a large cinema screen and the anxious thoughts are projected out onto the screen in front of you. Play around with this approach. Find what works for you.

The key thing to remember is to:

Observe, Label, Watch, Move on

By practicing this approach you gradually stop reacting with fear to the thought and you learn to treat it as nothing more than an odd peculiarity.

When you are at a stage where you are comfortable doing the above exercise and you feel you are making good progress, then try this additional step:

Actually invite one of your more regular fearful thoughts in.

Call the fear to you, say you just want it to come close so you can observe it.

It may seem like the last thing you would wish to bring upon yourself, as you don’t particularly enjoy these thoughts but this approach can be very empowering. You are now calling the shots. You actually invited the issue in.

By doing this you are discharging the dense vibration of fear surrounding the anxious thought. That fear was sustaining itself on your resistance, -the idea that you could not handle these thoughts.

The fear quickly evaporates when you turn around and say “yes of course I can handle these thoughts.”

Fear intensifies when we pull away from it. Anxious thoughts become a mental tug of war if we struggle with them.

It is the mental struggle of pulling against the anxious thoughts that creates the inner psychological tension.

The inner tension is fueled by thoughts like:

“I can’t handle to think about this -please go away”

“I don’t like that thought- I want it to stop!”

Take a different stance. Invite anxious thoughts in. Willingly sit with them, label them and do your very best not to react.

Yes, it does take practice but very soon you find yourself in a unique position of control. You are no longer a victim of fearful thinking but a decision maker in what you will or will not be concerned about.

As with every technique there is always a level of practice involved in the beginning. Initially you start observing but then suddenly get anxious about the fearful thought. That’s very normal in the beginning.

Keep at it. Practice and you will quickly see how less impacting those fearful thoughts become.

Do not let your mind trick you into believing that your anxiety is something you will always have to struggle with. That is simply not true.

Not alone is it possible to control the occurrence of anxious thoughts but I can teach you how to end panic attacks and general anxiety if that is your goal.

You can have the life of your dreams. Anxiety does not have the right to steal that hope from you.

I’m going to e-mail you my mini series. It will help reduce anxiety levels significantly.

Some of this information forms a small part of the Panic Away Program. My full program eliminates panic attacks and general anxiety very quickly and has proved highly successful with both long and short term sufferers of anxiety. The results speak for themselves.

To Learn more about Panic Away visit: www.PanicAway.com

Here are some of the things you will learn from Panic Away…

-Learn how to be empowered and gain confidence by engaging a simple technique to defuse any panic attack.

-The four most powerful approaches to creating an enduring anxiety buffer zone (particularly useful for those who experience GAD).<

-Learn to avoid making the one mistake almost everyone makes during a panic attack episode.



Here is a small sample of how the course has helped others:

…learned more from reading your program than I did from all the psychologists and other practitioners I had seen in the 25 years

I must tell you that out of all the items you can purchase regarding anxiety related products on the internet, I learned more from reading your program than I did from all the psychologists and other practitioners I had seen in the 25 years that I’ve had this condition.

I had been on Xanax and Klonopin for about 10 years, but this December, I decided to withdraw from it thinking I didn’t need the pills anymore according to some of the programs I ordered claiming “miracle cures”. That’s when all my symptoms started again. I felt as if I had wasted the past 20 years trying to get better.That’s when I started searching the web for home based “cures”. I ordered so many programs I started to get confused from too much conflicting advice. Also, I was promised support but I am still waiting replies from some of the more expensive programs!

You are a true gentleman, and I am going to post a very positive feedback on a website you might be familiar about called: Tapir?

Talk to ya, Andy

If you want to know more can go here