 Hi and welcome back. Today I'm sharing a fairly simple idea to help you if you struggle with anxiety or if you work with someone who does. So the idea is of having a buddy or an ally to sort of help you in difficult social situations and this is something that can be adapted for very young children right through to adults so whether you're watching this video because you're someone who struggles with anxiety yourself or perhaps you have a loved one or you work with someone who does then this is an idea worth trying. Now put really simply what we're doing is basically identifying ahead situations which we know we're going to find difficult because either we found them hard in the past or perhaps we're doing something new for the first time and that's inducing a certain level of anxiety and we are identifying a person who is also going to be there or perhaps who we can invite to come along as well who's going to kind of act as our support during that event and they don't necessarily have to do a huge amount it's not necessarily about them literally coming along and propping us up it's about us beforehand talking to them at a time of calm and letting them know which of the bits we're most likely to find difficult if there are certain points during that event that we're likely to struggle and if there's anything that they can do to help us so sometimes just literally having someone in the room who knows what we're going through it can be really really helpful other times it might be that we might say oh I particularly find the kind of meeting and greeting of new people really hard so maybe you can you can help me and we can have some of these discussions together or it might be that you find eating socially particularly hard and you'd like this friend to sit near you or to help you make sensible choices from the menu it really depends it depends on what your kind of difficulties are what things are the things that kind of trigger anxiety in you but the the key thing here is it's about planning ahead so often when we struggle with anxiety we find that if we think ahead to the things that we're going to go and challenge ourselves with and we think right what are likely to be the really tough bits here and we think what would be helpful then it might just literally be having someone by our side it might be knowing that person's across the room and we can make eye contact it might be that that person might walk out with us for five minutes if we need a little bit of fresh air it just you know it really depends and it's about kind of using a little bit of imagination adapting according to who the person is what you're like what the actual situation is and working between you to try and make this more manageable and this is something that your buddy needs to be completely on board with they need to be happy to be your buddy and so you know you need to have that discussion with them most people will be really really glad to help a friend if they can and then the other thing that you you need to agree with them is kind of how it's going to work kind of at the end so perhaps you're going to leave together and perhaps they're going to help you make your excuses perhaps you'll have an agreement with them that if you leave early they'll explain to people why you've gone or you'll have a reason that you'll give but yeah so the key thing is talk ahead with them think about the situation and have a buddy on side and use that as a means to allow you to challenge yourself just a little bit more and that doesn't mean that you should be barreling into situations that you would otherwise feel deeply uncomfortable with it just means that if there's something that you've thought yeah I'd like to try that but I'm not sure that my anxiety won't stop me that's the kind of thing where you're thinking well maybe actually if I've got someone on board and on side then I can manage that now the kind of person who can do this it might be a friend it might be a work colleague it might be at school it might be that a child within the class has a friend who acts as that that kind of buddy it can be anyone but the key thing is thinking ahead planning ahead identifying the trigger points and working together to think what are we going to do in those moments to make them a little bit easier I hope it's a helpful idea it's something that I use myself and I find it to be incredibly helpful and it's one of those things that oftentimes I will make plans ahead with someone and I will discover that just knowing they're there knowing they care knowing that I've got the support if I need it enables me first to attend the event in the first place and secondly gives me that extra bit of boost just to manage to get through it in in an okay way without generally needing to fall back on lots and lots of the things that I might have planned so yeah it's great plan plan work with a buddy the buddy will be pleased to help you in most instances and hopefully it lets you access some situations you might not have done otherwise I hope this was helpful as ever please take a moment to leave a comment with any other suggestions you have or ideas for future videos please subscribe and if you liked it give it a thumbs up thanks so much for watching and see you next time bye