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Areas › Worry and anxiety › Being seen and judged
People bracing for treatment often imagine being made to give a speech or walk into a party. It is almost never that. It is the same small unglamorous errands, done again, until the alarm stops firing quite so hard. If your list looks dull, that is a sign it is the right list.
The servants of the Lord of Mercy are those who walk humbly on the earth (Quran 25:63). What is being described is a way of going about ordinary days, not a grand performance.
الفرقان
وَعِبَادُ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَمۡشُونَ عَلَى ٱلۡأَرۡضِ هَوۡنࣰ ا وَإِذَا خَاطَبَهُمُ ٱلۡجَٰهِلُونَ قَالُواْ سَلَٰمࣰ ا
The servants of the Lord of Mercy are those who walk humbly on the earth, and who, when the foolish address them, reply, ‘Peace’
Qur’an 25:63read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A randomised trial of virtual reality cognitive behavioural therapy for public speaking anxiety found it worked about as well as conventional therapy, with the practical advantage that the feared situation could be repeated on demand. Repeatability is what that trial was buying, and ordinary errands give you the same thing for free. It tested public speaking in particular, so read it as support for repetition rather than for any specific errand.
Wallach HS, Safir MP, Bar-Zvi M. (2009). Virtual reality cognitive behavior therapy for public speaking anxiety: a randomized clinical trial.. Behavior modification doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The fear loosens through repetition in situations you can actually reach, not through one big frightening event.
When people frighten you, it helps to ask which part is the trouble: not knowing what to do, or being sure you are being marked while you do it. From the inside they feel identical.
Afterwards, say out loud what actually took place. You spoke without planning it and it went ordinarily. That sentence is the part that changes something.
If getting to the appointment frightened you, then you have already done the first hard thing. Walking in and talking to a stranger about yourself is the ladder, not the preparation for it.