At the top are the automatic thoughts that pop into your head when youre feeling anxious.

Avoidance This usually follows on from escape. Your body is very keen to switch off the fight-or-flight and with a little help from you, it will manage it. These may be major such as the death of a close family member or severe financial problems. Instead of believing the thoughts you will come to understand that they are generated by your Anxiety. If I have a panic attack and the teacher sees me theyll think Im a bad parent and a stupid person. stopping yourself from doing the compulsive rituals (response prevention). Your high anxiety makes it more likely that you will find yourself unable to say or do the things that you feel you should be doing, and more likely that you will continue to worry after the event that you have done or said something wrong. Did I choose this belief as a way of surviving? Social contacts We are social creatures. If you can learn to release your feelings instead of suppressing them you will find it helps the recovery process, and also helps stop the Anxiety from coming back once you have recovered. They must give you their time and attention - its no use at all if the helper on the supermarket ladder thinks they are going to do their own shopping at the same time. Healing your inner child The idea that each one of us has an inner child has been the butt of jokes in recent years, and yet its a concept that is useful in understanding ourselves. Pretty urgent, since theyve left it late to sort this out. part of your Anxiety. Emotions Anger - surprisingly, anger is helpful for some people. If you still believe in it totally then you will need to work even harder. If you are satisfied with levels 1, 2 or 3 then thats fine. Once youve formed the habit of doing relaxation every day, keep it up throughout your recovery programme. Do say my goal is to stop counting my coat hangers or my goal is to post a letter. There is no difficulty in understanding the effects of negative core beliefs - they undermine your self-esteem and sense of self-worth.