# Face your fears & self-talk



## Need (Aug 10, 2006)

I think ways to recover are to work on these several points :

- change your self-talk
recognize what you say to yourself all day long, and replace it with positive. this need extremly big efforts and it is hard work.
- face your fears head-on.
Start small if you have to, until you feel comfortable doing it. Avoidance = bad.

You will feel more and more confident after you face your fears and challenge your beliefs.


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## FearNoMore (Mar 29, 2006)

I agree, those are good thing to do


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## Tungsten (Dec 11, 2005)

Yup, those are the basics of CBT right there.


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## GaryUranga (Apr 22, 2006)

buy a notebook and fill it with this


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

You got it, Need!


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## sunmoonstars76 (Aug 19, 2006)

*What happens when self talk just gets annoying?*

:hide I am one of those with the more severe cases of social phobia. I can handle being around other people when I am with my mother or my partner, which are the only two people in the world I feel comfortable with. But in any other situation, especially work, my anxiety is through the roof and I avoid everyone and try to hide. And when there is no place to hide my shoulders are hunched my eyes are down and my face is beat red! And I can't breath. I have tried positive self talk so much. I'll sit tmyself and talk to myself, in my head of course, al day long and it just seems to make the anxiety worse! Is there something in my self talk that I am doing wrong? I mean I only say positive things to mysef. So, I don't know.


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## shill (Feb 18, 2006)

I think that trying to change your self-talk can actually make you much more stressed out. I've been trying out ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) recently, and one of the fundamental ideas is that trying to change your self-talk is like trying to fight a windmill. Instead, you accept that your mind is just doing what it does, and you do defusion activities, which help you to stop taking self-talk literally.

Of course, facing your fears head-on is involved in both CBT and ACT.


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## Chrysalii (Jun 24, 2006)

To me that leads to more awkward silence which leads to more anxiety. 
It's hard to explain, but I'm sure we all have experience with awkward pauses.


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## Steve85 (Oct 11, 2006)

The idea with replacing your negative seft-talk is NOT to replace it with positive rah-rah self-talk. The idea is to take your negative seft-talk which is usually nonsense, and replace that with a BELIEVABLE statement.

I.E: "Oh no. I'm going to lose my mind. I'm going to go crazy if I have to talk to them!"

Replace with: "Ok, I'm not all that great speaking to people, but it's just anxiety. I'm not going to lose my mind. I'm not going to go crazy. It's ok."

We constantly overreact. We need to change that and make ourselves believe that these situations are managable.


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## sunmoonstars76 (Aug 19, 2006)

thats a good way to put it steve, that is very helpful.


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## Thief13x (May 4, 2005)

I would like to suggest this website, the free program really really helps alot.

http://moodgym.anu.edu.au/

there's nothing to lose and it really helps to turn your thoughts around. Helps tremendously with the self-talk thing and anxiety + depression in general.


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## moon37 (Feb 27, 2006)

Steve85 said:


> The idea with replacing your negative seft-talk is NOT to replace it with positive rah-rah self-talk. The idea is to take your negative seft-talk which is usually nonsense, and replace that with a BELIEVABLE statement.
> 
> I.E: "Oh no. I'm going to lose my mind. I'm going to go crazy if I have to talk to them!"
> 
> ...


Thanks. I like your way of thinking.


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## SunLite (Jan 4, 2005)

I like that Need I like you buddy

The only thing I would have is you need to make sure to identify what you need to be working on.

IE If you have a real hard time socially interacting with people in general you probably wouldn't want to go to a club to try to pick up chicks.The steps have to be realistic or you can reallly really get down and beat yourself up.(I learned this the hard way)


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## Need (Aug 10, 2006)

SunLite said:


> I like that Need I like you buddy
> 
> The only thing I would have is you need to make sure to identify what you need to be working on.
> 
> IE If you have a real hard time socially interacting with people in general you probably wouldn't want to go to a club to try to pick up chicks.The steps have to be realistic or you can reallly really get down and beat yourself up.(I learned this the hard way)


Thanks bro.
yeah first I have to handle social anxiety problem, AFTER, girls part...

thing is I have deep and not so deep beliefs that I need to change :
- others will criticize me, make fun of me
- others will not like me because I am not-so-much-social
- my physical symptoms will show others that i'm strange

all these beliefs & thoughts are self-fullfilling prophecy and when I think about it, it become real.

Facing a fear :
if you fear social situations, it is useless to go into it, facing your fears if you don't change your way of thinking. In fact, it can get WORSE.

Cognitive thoughts inner talk change + behavior changing is the most efficient way.


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## sunmoonstars76 (Aug 19, 2006)

I amcurrently trying out moodgym, it does help with depression and stuff.


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