Paradoxes

Last Saturday I spoke about paradoxes, or what everyone with social anxiety does wrong (not on purpose, but just because they don't understand).  A paradox is something that is solved by doing the very opposite of what seems like common sense.  It is counter-intuitive.  The body wants to respond to anxiety in one way, and you have been responding in that way for years and years.  The problem is that what you are doing now does not help you overcome social anxiety.  Any strategy that chips away at social anxiety is a paradox and involves doing something that is counter-intuitive: it just doesn't seem "common sense".   Yet the more you understand what a paradox is and what a paradox can do, the more you see paradoxes in every situation that involves anxiety.  Learning to respond to anxiety in a better way, by understanding and using paradoxes, is the solution to anxiety, even though it seems to be counter-intuitive.  The answer (the solution) to social anxiety involves many paradoxes.  When you begin to see them, and begin to be able to use them in your daily life, you will be making some nice progress against social anxiety.