Lesson 5 · The leverage point

The ABC model — where the leverage actually is

Most people with social anxiety walk around with a quiet theory: if the situations were different, I'd feel different. If the meeting were smaller, if the party were with people I knew, if my voice didn't shake when I talked — then I'd be fine.

It's a reasonable theory. It's also wrong, in a useful way. The same situation produces wildly different feelings in different people, and even in the same person on different days. That's the clue. The situation isn't doing the work. Something in the middle is.