Aha moment

I finally feel like a made a tiny break-through with my social anxiety as I've practiced my cognitive behavioral therapy from Dr. Richards (from the Social Anxiety Institute).

I'm still on session 1 to solidify the foundation. Since I hadn't been consistently practicing 7 days/week, I decided to stay a little longer on session 1 before going on to session 2. However, I did begin reading a handout from session 2 to use as my "slow talk" reading material. And it was while reading that handout that I had a life changing moment.

As I was reading about automatic negative thinking there were a few statements that stood out to me that suddenly put things into perspective. It went something like this: (this is not the exact wording) Negative automatic thinking always lies. It never tells the truth. It can fool you into thinking you're worthless. It can take away your self-esteem. It can make you feel hopeless and that you will never get better...but it can have power over you only if you let it."

My aha moment was simple. When those of us who suffer from social anxiety feel discouraged thinking all is lost, that we're worthless, that we're no good and not worthy of happiness, that everyone is judging us, that we should fear every situation, that we can't ever get better, who do those feelings and power come from? It all became clear to me. Satan is the father of all lies. If I give in to all this negative thinking, in a sense I'm giving into him. I am letting him lead me down a path of loneliness, sadness and defeat. If I let him hault my progression to accomplish amazing things, then I have let him win and I have not lived the life I was meant to live and I will not be able to accomplished the things I need to do. But if I stand up and say, "I am standing up to you and taking my control back. I won't let you have this hold on me any longer.", then I can win.

When I repeat the words of the therapy, I realize I'm really taking Satan's grasp off of me. I'm taking back my power. I'm not letting him influence the way I think about myself or the way I interpret the world or other people's opinions of me. I am a disciple of God and of Jesus Christ. I am not a slave to the devil. I will not let him have power over me any longer.

This is profound for me. I found a connection in this therapy to the real spirit inside of me and to the gospel of Jesus Christ of which I'm a part and I can feel my heart and mind start to heal. I know I still have a lot of work to do, but this really had an impact on me that is very healing. I am so grateful I found this therapy. That it's something I can do at home. That it's something I have made myself continue to practice so I can get better. I can already feel that a piece of me has healed and it will continue to spread until all of me is whole again.

One step forward, two steps back

I decided today that I could either hide behind a two-hour episode of what happened after the Bachelor and the Final Rose or confront the doozie of a social anxiety episode I faced on Monday.

I have to admit that it set me back a bit and I'm still trying to pick myself up.

And yes, I might add, I did fall off the wagon again and stop doing my therapy. All I ask is that you meet me where I am today and call it good. We all have our ups and downs.

I started the therapy series "again" last week. I once again decided I needed to be much more pro-active about helping myself heal. I completed the first session's assignments and wrote out a "stop statement" to stop my negative thinking and wrote out some pro-active statements to help me think about my situation differently. I've also been practicing "slow talk" as one of the ways to help keep me focused on calming myself. And I tried to refocus with distraction techniques to help keep the negative thoughts out.

I have to say first of all, that I was surprised at how often I had negative thoughts and secondly, how much energy it takes to stop them and take time to refocus. This therapy does take work. Mental work. Emotional Work. And it takes it every day. And because I've been living negatively for so long, it's kind of hard and I want to whine and say, "This is too hard! Can't I just get better without having to do this?"

The therapy is supposed to be done every day when you're alone and due to life's distractions, I ended up doing it about 3 or 4 days out of 7...and even with my lack of consistency I really did start to feel more hopeful.

And you know how it goes, you feel more hopeful, so you slow down on your determination to do the therapy because you feel like you're getting better...and it starts all over again.

Anyway, then came Monday. I knew my visiting teachers would be coming and I'd tried to push it out of my mind like it wasn't a big deal (but my inner voice, that blasted inner voice kept telling me I was really dreading it). I know I wasn't stopping my negative thoughts as fast as they were coming in. I was in an asteroids game without a controller.

So I decided to take a crash course in reading over my flashcards (stop statement and positive thought statements) minutes before they were going to come over (hahaha. ha.). Unfortunately, there are no short-cuts to healing. No Cliff's Notes for Social Anxiety Therapy.

So there I was, on high alert, reading the flashcards and battling negative thoughts while trying to keep a smile on my face saying, "it's going to be fine". And of course you can guess, it wasn't fine. The asteroids pounded me.

I had basically gotten myself into a state of anxiety as I rushed to prevent myself from getting into one. Bad timing. I got choked up during their visit, had to fake a cough, get water, thought about how red my face was, kept wondering when they were going to leave, meanwhile flashcard statements were bouncing around in my mind trying to combat the evil forces. Sorry little flashcards, panic won.

When they finally left, which couldn't come fast enough I might add, I was devastated. After all my hard work to heal and there I stood, back where I started...well, let's be honest, I felt I had fallen even farther back than where I started.

Today is a new day. And after the shock and awe of my downfall has somewhat subsided I realized one thing. The whole "after all my hard work to heal..." was hogwash. I did the therapy 3 or 4 days out of 7. Dr. Richards states countless times that consistency and repetition are key to healing.

Instead of following my inner voice to never have my visiting teachers over again, never be a visiting teacher again, never allow home teachers to come into our home and/or leave the church entirely; quit my job, never see anyone again and live in a dark cave, I've vowed to pick myself up and start again. I will do the session 1 therapy again this week every day so I can move on to session two. I really want to jump ahead, but I have to follow the steps if I'm really going to heal.

I can't keep living this way. I just can't. This isn't any way to live.

Here's to another week of session 1: Overcoming Social Anxiety.

Here's to healing.