We all approach the world, and deal with our experiences, using our beliefs and assumptions to guide us. These are your patterns of thinking and fundamental attitudes. Negative automatic thoughts, such as 'they think I'm stupid', 'everyone is looking at me', or 'I'm always doing something wrong' can dominate your thoughts. When you're feeling anxious your thoughts tend to have a negative bias, and you interpret things in terms of how much of a threat they might be to you as if the world were full of dangerous risks. You only notice and remember things that fit your fears. So, for example, you might not notice what people are actually saying. When you're socially anxious you become painfully aware of yourself and of your perceived shortcomings, and once you start thinking about them they tend to dominate, so there's less attention left over for anything else. Social anxiety affects what you notice - what you pay attention to. In order to make sense of the relationship between thoughts and feelings, it helps to distinguish different levels of thinking. Thinking can trigger bouts of anxiety, and it can keep the anxiety going once it's started, so understanding this part of the problem is essential in working out how to overcome it. ('They don't want me with them.' 'They think I'm weird.' 'They don't like me.') Underneath you may believe that you are different or odd and don't quite belong. To make matters worse, you think that the things that you suppose other people are thinking are true. If you're socially anxious you think that others are judging you badly.
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