In treating anxiety, I like to present my clients with this technique I like to call "Feelings vs. Facts". Anxiety tends to make us feel like everything that we are experiencing is real, true and factual. However, that's not always the case. Anxiety can make you feel as if people are judging you, you aren't good enough, things won't work out... but what if anxiety is wrong? What if all of these feelings you have are just that, feelings. We can check this by asking ourselves "what are the FACTS?" When my anxiety is in high gear I generally FEEL like people are mad at me. Have I done anything to anyone? Am I reading too much into tones of texts/emails? Are people REALLLLLY my friends? I check this by asking these people questions, "are we good?" "did I do anything?, I'm having a weird day and just want to check in". It's almost always "no" with laughter accompanying it and a sigh of relief on my part. Then I accept the answers at face value to assist in moving past the moment and acknowledging my anxiety. I encourage you to try this as well, feelings aren't facts! They are feelings and they are to be acknowledged as that, but they don't have to be processed as facts. Hope this is helpful to someone somewhere :)
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