Developing New Healthy Realistic Thought Patterns

Social anxiety is characterized by anxious feelings in social situations and negative self-critical thought patterns. You may be all too aware of these negative thoughts, or they may exist just below the surface in your mind. These thoughts are based upon beliefs you have developed, sometimes due to criticism by others which you have internalized, low self esteem, bullying or other traumatic events.

Once these thought patterns have been systematically uncovered and their true nature revealed, we need to replace them with other thoughts. It is not enough to tell ourselves to stop thinking them. In fact doing so actually has the opposite effect. Try it yourself right now. "Don't think of a green elephant."

It is important to reprogram our thinking so that we have a set of healthy realistic thought patterns.

This is not thinking positively for the sake of being positive, or ignoring problems hoping they will go away. This involves developing a new outlook that will serve you better and help you become more confident by helping you become open to change, new solutions, and healthy outcomes.

You can discover a whole new way of thinking that is self-supportive, bold, self-affirming and optimistic.

These are reality based, helpful, healthy thoughts that will expand your life and bring you joy.

There is nothing about negative thoughts that makes them inherently more "real" than positive thoughts.