Areas › Worry and anxiety › Being seen and judged
When a step does not happen, cut the next one down without any speech about it. Smaller, and carry on.
Progress here is often slower than anyone would like, and that is the method working rather than the method failing. What does real damage is a run of steps that were all slightly too big, because each one adds to the case that this cannot be done. Small steps keep your confidence in the process intact, and that is what you need over months.
Qur’an and Sunnah
so that you may find contentment (Quran 20:130). The contentment there is attached to patient repeated practice, not to a quick result.
فَٱصۡبِرۡ عَلَىٰ مَا يَقُولُونَ وَسَبِّحۡ بِحَمۡدِ رَبِّكَ قَبۡلَ طُلُوعِ ٱلشَّمۡسِ وَقَبۡلَ غُرُوبِهَاۖ وَمِنۡ ءَانَآيِٕ ٱلَّيۡلِ فَسَبِّحۡ وَأَطۡرَافَ ٱلنَّهَارِ لَعَلَّكَ تَرۡضَىٰ
so [Prophet] be patient with what they say- celebrate the praise of your Lord, before the rising and setting of the sun, celebrate His praise during the night, and at the beginning and end of the day, so that you may find contentment
Qur’an 20:130read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Progress does not always arrive at a steady rate. In a secondary analysis of one hundred and seven people in group therapy for social phobia, improvement sometimes came as a sudden jump rather than a slope, most often around the fifth session. That was one trial in a group format, so the timing is not something to plan around, but it is a reason not to read a slow patch as the end of the road.
Hofmann SG, Schulz SM, Meuret AE, Moscovitch DA, Suvak M. (2006). Sudden gains during therapy of social phobia.. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Belief in the method is what keeps you turning up, so protect it ahead of speed.
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
If most of your talking happens somewhere everything gets counted, likes, views, replies, then of course a room full of people feels like a scoreboard too. The habit was learned somewhere real.
Build the ladder from what you do now, not from what you think you should be managing. If phone calls are currently impossible, the first rung sits somewhere below a phone call.
Being articulate is not the same as being alright. Plenty of people who talk easily one to one are barely holding it together in the rooms that actually frighten them.