 So guys, I'm going to share with you in this video something that someone wrote here and I think it's so great. It's so many useful insights from a person who has been practicing inquiry, self-help, both sorts of techniques in order to deal with a very difficult, challenging thing that a lot of us have, which is anxiety. And a few questions in this. So I'm going to just read down through it and let's see if we can take anything from this because I think there's a very, very important takeaway message from this. Maybe you've been practicing inquiry or challenging some of those negative fear-based thoughts for a while and this person seems to have run into an impasse. They've got to a certain point and their progress has stalled. So I want you to see what you think of this and I'll see if I can add anything helpful to the discussion on it. It's a great, great piece here. So this says, I'm a lifelong enthusiast, practitioner of self-help and spirituality. An anxiety has always been my predominant emotion and I've been working for years to move past this. For me, it's mainly social but other forms come up also. Okay, so mainly social anxiety. They're for years and this person has been practicing self-help, spirituality for quite a long time. So other forms of emotion or other forms of anxiety are coming up also and says, I find that doing inquiry or questioning stressful thoughts about social situations brings me relief if my mind is anticipating the situation. So public speaking or socializing. Okay, so it's helpful when maybe the speech is tomorrow okay, or the social event is tomorrow and the do the inquiry and the stressful thoughts that come up and in that moment before it the person is saying that it's very helpful that those calm me down and it makes me think or be in a better mindset, which is great, right? However there's a however here and it's such a great however. I love it however, I always run into an obstacle. It says when I'm in the social situation my hit rate is about 70 30 so that means 30 of the time I can remain relaxed. However, 70 percent of the time my anxiety comes up with a vengeance this as I've said is after years of practice so if you're reading this if you're listening to this video right now you're probably thinking to yourself oh for god's sake is it going to take years and then all that's that's going to be 30 percent and 70 percent of the time I'm still going to have this anxiety even if I do all the inquiry the CBT the challenging negative thoughts. Well, let's read on and see but it's a fair question so my question is does this mean that inquiry or questioning is ineffective? Does it mean I'm doing it wrong? I don't think it's that you're doing it wrong put your mind at ease on that. I think if you've been doing it for that long it's not complicated some people do make mistakes on it and you can sharpen your process but I think there's something else and I'll get to that in a minute so the question really from here on is is it ineffective? Does your success or failure rate here of when you're in this situation the anxiety still flares up happening 70 percent of the time does that mean this whole thing is ineffective? Shouldn't I have moved past this by now? I'm so frustrated with this I'm close to the point of packing all this in and just avoiding social situations altogether or as much as possible. I feel I've been lied to somewhat in terms of how effective inquiry CBT or questioning really is in fairness I'm doing slightly better I used to get anxious all the time now at least I have some experiences where anxiety is not present however and she ends on this shouldn't it be gone entirely by now giving the given the time I've put into this I think that is a fantastic, fantastic piece of work by this person so let's see if we can make sense of this because you know if we're talking 70 30 percent at a time my anxiety my whatever you want to call it my fear still comes up I think this comes down to how you define success in all of this and what the goal of this is because it's fantastic that the inquiry the tools the cognitive therapy and everything is helping you feel better before the event now in the event what happens is your nervous system has been conditioned from the past from from it could be anything right it could be various traumas from the past social traumas or bullying it could have been neglect it could have been being ignored so all of those are very complicated emotions and if they're prolonged over time that goes into your nervous system and now your nervous system it's on a cellular level that trauma or that fear is sort of encoded into your body so that it becomes a conditioned response and that is very very the cognitive therapy is great for getting you into a better mindset helping you move to those situations but what I want to tell you here in this is if fear comes up in the situation the social situation maybe does that mean that you've failed in this it's a great question and I don't think that's what it means at all there's another you know tool you can use here in this and it's a reinterpretation of what should happen when I'm in a social situation you can go back and you can dissect the past sometimes that's what hypnosis is for sometimes that's what cognitive therapy more like psychoanalysis is for understanding where my trauma comes from and why when I'm in these situations do I get so aggravated and afraid and really that's an understanding and that'll help you get rid of feelings of shame and guilt and things like that but as I said as it because it's a conditioned response on a cellular level now it's no longer cognitive and oftentimes it'll be it will flare up when you're in those situations your nervous system is trying to keep you safe and it is learned in the past that people certain people cannot be trusted they're not safe they've hurt you in the past and that's gone right down into the body and the body now just gives you that response right back up so the tool you can start to use now in in addition to those those tools I think you should keep doing those those those approaches especially inquiry and challenging but the other tool is to allow the goal at that point of your work is to realize I'm someone who gets anxious sometimes and is that something I need to fix is it something that makes me broken or is it completely understandable and not something I have to get rid of or put myself down if I do feel nervous or anxious in these situations maybe it's supposed to be happening for me our our attention then shifts to a different way of categorizing success in terms of how you handle it because okay my body is learned in social situations it should freak out a little bit well now what success means is okay how do I how do I handle that how do I soothe myself before it happens during it and afterwards the goal is now about soothing relaxing and calming the nervous system when it you can say inevitably if you want to say inevitably if it happens all the time just accept it and do not see it as a sign that there's something wrong with you at all because it isn't your fault these things always come from the past they're not even your thoughts these thoughts okay it's it's conditioned it's it's from an ancient time in the past usually as I said it's not it's it's it's well it's sometimes but rarely it's about an isolated traumatic event like something horrendous like even sexual abuse or or an assault or something like that although that can happen far more likely is this ingrained conditioned response happens through prolonged difficult psychological situations in which maybe you're ignored as I said or you're yelled at or you're you're told that your needs don't matter or you're bullied and that goes on for a long time the body has just learned that now with time and allowing it does get less and less but it's not something that has to happen because you do CBT exercises necessarily right so it's not that you're relied to about that I would say because CBT and inquiry and all those things are very very helpful it's just that if we can just start to work with the body rather than trying to manipulate a new response from the nervous system this whole thing the healing process speeds up immeasurably much much faster and much more enjoyable experience enjoyable is the wrong word but a much more peaceful experience so the one word I want you to take away from this is allow I'm in a social situation I'm in a meeting I mean I'm going to give a public talk I'm going I'm in a group of friends socially new strangers socially anxiety okay there's anxiety there does it mean I'm broken does it mean I've failed in my self-help efforts not at all not at all it's brought you to a point now where you're taking it out of this and into the soothing exercises and that was what was always required anyway in this both are required but now it's bringing this into understanding the nervous system the nervous system will never ever respond to anything other than soothing it will never respond to force to try to change it to demand that it change because it only perceives that as another threat and it gets even more entrenched in its in its stance defensive posture so I want to thank the person who wrote that because I think it's a fantastic question a fantastic insight from person who has done this and really tried the work I want this to be a motivational video for you do the CVT do the any self-help books that you you're interested in do the inquiry never stop that ever right that's so helpful and then add I'm just I'm talking I'm adding a tool to your your tool belt here if you like add that tool of allow your nervous system to respond exactly as it does at all times okay with more awareness of what's going on and soothing allowing is soothing but there are various techniques you can do there's ETF and there's I'm really in tapping and things like that there's just human touch can actually be very very soothing for the body to understand what's happening is a big big part of that so I hope that was helpful and whatever the tool you're using keep using it keep using it and don't stop guys because it's such a healthy thing to do for yourself you're never a victim of any of these things whatever happened to you in the past however challenging it can be healing is possible for everyone and you get down to the later levels in it and you begin to realize wow healing is not exactly what I thought it was but when you when you bring in allowing like that my god everything changes you know it's it's such a relief to feel huh I don't have to get rid of this I don't have to fix this broken thing thanks for watching guys and take care of yourselves out there and I'll talk to you next time