Confronting and overcoming a phobia or other anxiety disorder takes motivation and planning.  You need to understand the willpower it takes to overcome your mind´s negative anxiety feedback loop. You need to set goals and develop a plan of action in order to achieve success. 

Samantha was suffering from agoraphobia. This phobia can be so destructive that it can turn you into a virtual recluse. While this was not yet the case for Samantha, her life had already been changed in profound ways.

She was avoiding crowded places, had given up passions that she had previously like going to the theater and museums because she found them too crowded and avoided places she was unfamiliar with or that were too far away from her home.

This had limited her social interactions and strained personal and professional relationships. 

The beginnings of this problem stem from an undiagnosed panic attack condition that left Samantha without a proper diagnosis and a lot of confusion for a long period of time.

In the absence of a proper understanding of her condition and the reasons behind it she was left to fill in the details with only her imagination. The various horror stories and other disastrous scenarios helped create the agoraphobic condition that Samantha struggles with today. If left unchecked it could become even worse!

Samantha needs a game plan to deal with this condition in a manageable way. If you try to cure yourself of your fears all at once and dive right in cold turkey it could backfire and make you even more fearful. 

Gradually building on successes in a hierarchy to reach your goals is the best way to conquer any fear not just a phobia.  In order to create, perform and practice your own recovery program, you must be willing to do a number of things.

1.  Place Blame Where it Should Go – On Your Own Shoulders!

It´s easy to pass the buck and blame someone, your parents, your boss, or other people in your life for your problems. While they may have contributed to your problem, you are the one in control of your own mental state and reactions and as such, blame lies with you. 

This is really an empowering concept.  Once you stop blaming other people you can get down to fixing your problem. Moreover, if you caused your own problem you should be able to undo it too!

2.  Laziness is Outta Here!

It is crucial that you are motivated to rid yourself of this problem. You must practice, you must work to rebuild your confidence and you must find a relaxation technique that works for you. 

The key to practicing and keeping your motivation level will be finding a relaxation technique, deep breathing, visualization, progressive muscle relaxation, meditation that can help return you to a calm state during your practice. 

3.  Risk Taking is In!

Samantha, like you will need to practice imagery desensitization to picture, confront and overcome her fears. You have to be willing to take chances both visually and in real life to overcome your fears, worries and anxieties. 

4.  Create and Set Goals!

Goal setting is important to any endeavor but for overcoming phobias or other anxiety disorder it is key.

What do you want your recovery to look like? What do you want your life to be like? What changes do you want to see? How will you feel? How will you act? It’s important that you goals be realistic. 

Moreover, you need to understand that these goals will be achieved over time. Don´t expect a complete recovery in a day or a week. It is important to set incremental goals as well as more far reaching goals when asking yourself these questions.

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Tagged with: Agoraphobia • Anxiety Disorder • Anxiety Symptoms • Anxiey Attacks • Generalized Anxiety Disorder • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder • Panic Attacks • Social Phobia

Filed under: Social Phobia

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