I had my session at Clear Path Solutions today and the session went very well. Stephanie and I started the exposure exercises today, something that I have been looking forward to.
During our session today I learned that it would be helpful to stop magnifying my physical sensations because as noted by Stephanie, and others in the past, I don't appear to be visibly anxious despite feeling like I'm blushing or sweating or anything like that. I now believe it would be helpful to tell myself, while I'm getting anxious, to relax because people are probably not even aware of my anxiety. Even if someone did notice something, like me sweating for example, they could interpret it many different ways and not just that I'm weird or an anxious wreck.
I gained a lot of confidence after today's session because I had an opportunity to practice something that causes a lot of anxiety in a controlled environment and I managed to learn something new about my condition that could help me in the future. This confidence even allowed me to practice the same exposure exercise on my own on the subway. I did feel anxious but I kept telling myself, "Relax, what you think people are thinking about you is completely exaggerated and is not helping you get better." This allowed my anxiety to decrease and I was pretty much anxiety free for the rest of the day. I will continue to step out of my comfort zone a bit more as the week goes by and I will keep this new found wisdom in mind when I'm feeling anxious.
Stephanie and I also discussed how certain core beliefs can contribute to mood disorders and anxiety and we will work on disproving the unhealthy core beliefs with evidence of what's really happening now. I will be reading the chapters on assumptions and core beliefs from Mind Over Mood and I will also read up a bit more on exposure from The Shyness & Social Anxiety Workbook. I will be posting more on core beliefs and an anxiety rating scale over the next couple days. I'm feeling really good about all this.
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