Areas › Worry and anxiety › Being seen and judged
Give the ladder a name that sounds like yours. Challenges you set yourself land completely differently from tasks you have been handed.
Write the steps out with whoever is helping rather than receiving a finished list. The words matter more than they should: a challenge invites you to have a go, homework invites you to put it off. If a step feels like somebody else's idea of what you ought to manage, change it until it feels like yours.
Qur’an and Sunnah
who strive in God's way without fearing anyone's reproach (Quran 5:54). That is a quality built in steps, and it is easier to build something you have named for yourself.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ مَن يَرۡتَدَّ مِنكُمۡ عَن دِينِهِۦ فَسَوۡفَ يَأۡتِي ٱللَّهُ بِقَوۡمࣲ يُحِبُّهُمۡ وَيُحِبُّونَهُۥٓ أَذِلَّةٍ عَلَى ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ أَعِزَّةٍ عَلَى ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ يُجَٰهِدُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ وَلَا يَخَافُونَ لَوۡمَةَ لَآئِمࣲۚ ذَٰلِكَ فَضۡلُ ٱللَّهِ يُؤۡتِيهِ مَن يَشَآءُۚ وَٱللَّهُ وَٰسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ
You who believe, if any of you go back on your faith, God will soon replace you with people He loves and who love Him, people who are humble towards the believers, hard on the disbelievers, and who strive in God’s way without fearing anyone’s reproach. Such is God’s favour. He grants it to whoever He will. God has endless bounty and knowledge
Qur’an 5:54read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
One trial compared a single session of virtual reality public speaking exposure led by a therapist with the same session run by the person themselves. Both reduced speaking anxiety and the self led version was not the weaker option. With twenty five people per arm this is a small study, so the honest reading is that self directed exposure deserves to be taken seriously, not that guidance is unnecessary.
Lindner P, Miloff A, Fagernäs S, Andersen J, Sigeman M, Andersson G, Furmark T, Carlbring P. (2019). Therapist-led and self-led one-session virtual reality exposure therapy for public speaking anxiety with consumer hardware and software: A randomized controlled trial.. Journal of anxiety disorders doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
People will sit through discomfort for something they chose in a way they will not for something prescribed.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Social fear does not always look like hiding. Some people are the ones organising everything and talking to everyone, running a hard commentary on themselves the whole time.
You might manage the smile and find the hello impossible. That is not the day going wrong. It is the ladder showing you where the next rung actually belongs.
When something good comes out of a conversation you started, say plainly that you started it. Chance may have put the person there. You were the one who spoke.