👋 Welcome

We help you overcome social anxiety. We do it by providing a proven process, amplified by the support of a group (who you have hopefully met by now).

Groups are at the heart of our approach. They give you the wisdom to understand your anxiety and the confidence to try new things, rewiring your habits for good.

The key to overcoming social anxiety is to approach situations in new ways, seeing what happens and reflecting on what you learn. Doing things differently means:

1. Dropping your ‘safety behaviours’
2. Focusing outwardly (rather than inwardly)

It’s not easy, but you are capable. Exercises below will help you prove it to yourself. This easy-to-follow guide and templates, together with the support of your group, will give you the know-how and confidence to maintain it.

As you embark on this journey, remember that change takes time. Be patient with yourself and celebrate each small victory along the way. With perseverance and dedication, you can reclaim your life from the clutches of social anxiety and live with greater confidence and freedom.

Let’s get started!

How to use this guide

The WalkTheTalk process is a self-guided programme that is based on cognitive therapy for social anxiety disorder (CT-SAD). It’s adapted for a group setting and includes additional exercises and resources that have been found to be helpful by WalkTheTalk members. The process emphasises continued maintenance, not just a limited number of sessions.

If you have completed CBT previously and recognise some of the exercises, that’s great! It may be helpful to do them again. If you have not completed CBT previously, you can still self-guide yourself through the WalkTheTalk process.

Here are some general tips:

• Recognise that we are each on a spectrum. No two people with social anxiety are the same. You have your own unique experiences, situations, signs and symptoms and pace of development. All of that is fine.
• Resist the compulsion to compare. Only compare yourself to your own progress from yesterday.
• The most important thing is that you make progress. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results immediately. Just keep working at it.
• Try to not set expectations. The goal of the process is to avoid avoiding situations (‘overcome’ social anxiety) and not to suddenly enjoy being the centre of attention at a party or asking a stranger for something.

The process is self-paced, divided into four sections:

1. Understanding your anxiety: This section will help you to learn about the symptoms of social anxiety disorder, your triggers and avoidant behaviours, and the cognitive distortions that contribute to your anxiety.
2. Trying things differently for the first time: This section will help you to start experimenting with new behaviours in social situations. You will experience what it’s like to approach situations in a new way.
3. Putting all of this into practice to overcome social anxiety: This section will help you to apply what you have learned to real-world social situations. This is where the hard but worthwhile work comes in.
4. Optional extras to go even further and give back: This section is for people who want to go above and beyond, and to help others with social anxiety. 

You can take as long as you need in each section. There is no right or wrong way to go through the guide. The most important thing is that you are making progress.

Each section includes exercises, practices and resources.

• Exercises: Exercises are prescriptive steps to follow. Each exercise has a suggestion for how long it might take. You can do these exercises once or more often if it is helpful. Some exercises can be done in a group or with the assistance of members of your group, and some can be done outside of the group, either alone or with a friendly person.
• Practices: Practices are more like habits. They can help you to build a ‘muscle’ like focusing your attention outwards, or they can be routines like daily challenges and experiments. We provide aids such as a journal and daily email to help you ingrain these habits.
• Resources: Resources are video, audio and written articles to help you learn more about a topic.

We encourage you to use these in the way that works best for you. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

Remember, everyone’s journey is different. Be patient and persistent. Overcoming social anxiety takes time and effort. But with hard work and dedication, it’s possible!

The first step to overcoming social anxiety is to understand what triggers it and how its grip takes hold for you. Everyone’s anxiety is unique to them. This exercise is designed to help you identify your unique imprint of anxiety. You can do this exercise alone or use the questions you’ll be asked at meetings to develop it.

Once you have a good understanding of your social anxiety, the rest of the process to overcoming it will fall into place. You can think of the output of this exercise as a ‘map’. It’ll help you discover the landscape of your anxiety, where you’d like to get to and the roads you’ll need to travel to get there.

Most importantly, you’ll understand your safety behaviours and therefore what you need to try differently to break the cycle of social anxiety.

The key to overcoming social anxiety lies in two crucial steps:

1. Dropping safety behaviours: These are the actions we take to avoid or minimise anxiety in social situations. Examples include avoiding eye contact, rehearsing conversations beforehand or staying on the sidelines at gatherings. While safety behaviours may provide temporary relief, they ultimately reinforce our fears and prevent us from gaining confidence in our ability to handle social interactions.
2. Focusing outward: This involves shifting our attention away from ourselves and our own anxieties and towards others and the present moment. By paying attention to the people we are interacting with and the conversation at hand, we can reduce self-consciousness and engage more fully in social situations.

The core of growth lies in challenging ourselves to try things differently. By stepping outside of our comfort zones and experimenting with new behaviours, we can gain new insights into our own patterns and reactions. As we do this, it is important to approach our experiences with open curiosity, recording our observations without judgement.

In a way we become scientists conducting experiments in the laboratory of our own lives. By carefully observing the results of our actions, we can learn to identify which behaviours are helpful and which are not. Over time, this process of experimentation and learning can lead to significant reductions in social anxiety.

The following exercises and practices will help you to discover, for the first time, what happens when you drop safety behaviours and focus outward. As you engage in these activities, remember to approach them with a spirit of curiosity and openness. The more you are willing to experiment, the more you will learn about yourself and your social anxiety.

A final word before experimenting yourself – use your WalkTheTalk group as a practice ground and go at a pace that feels right to you. When you feel you’ve experienced what it’s like to drop your safety behaviours and focus outwards, it’s time to move to the next section.

The path to overcoming social anxiety is not a sprint, but a marathon. It requires commitment and dedication to continuous experimentation. With each experiment, you gather valuable insights into the nature of your anxiety and the impact of your behaviours.

As you embark on this journey, it is crucial to maintain an attitude of open curiosity and neutrality. Avoid attaching yourself to outcomes or expecting specific results. The goal is not necessarily “achieve” anything in particular or even to start enjoying situations (though you may), but to simply engage in social situations without avoidance.

Remember, progress will be lumpy, with ups and downs along the way. There will be moments of triumph and moments of struggle. But if you persevere, you will gradually move in a positive direction.

How long will I need to do this?

This step may vary in duration, as we all begin from different starting points with unique experiences. Be patient and kind to yourself; there is no rush, and your group is there to support, motivate and encourage you.

It is important to resist comparing yourself to others (easier said than done, we know) and instead focus on your own progress against where you were yesterday or before.

Tools to make it easier

To help you on your journey, WalkTheTalk offers several aids: your group, daily challenges, experiment ideas and a journal.

The group sessions provide a supportive environment where you can share your experiences, gain encouragement, and learn from others. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small they may seem. And in moments of difficulty, your group will be here to help you become unstuck.

The journal with experiment templates is a valuable tool for tracking your progress (which will come, by the way, and it’s easy to forget how far you’ve come). By recording your observations and reflections, you’ll begin to feel more confident and capable. The most rewarding moments come when you take a situation in your stride, only afterwards remembering that it previously panicked you.

The daily challenges are designed to help you build confidence, both socially and generally. As you step outside of your comfort zone and try new things, you will develop a sense of self-efficacy that will empower you to face social situations with greater confidence.

As you progress on your journey with social anxiety, you may be looking for a sense of ‘completion’ or even find yourself drawn to the act of giving back to others. Especially if your group peers and facilitators have helped you grow. Perhaps you will choose to share your experiences and insights with those who are still struggling, offering them hope and guidance along the way. Or perhaps you will dedicate your time and energy to creating your own WalkTheTalk group – a supportive space where others can connect and find solace in shared understanding.

While living with anxiety is a lifelong journey and ‘completion’ is probably not the healthiest way to look at it, there are opportunities you can take to prove to yourself that you capable of anything.

Likewise, giving back to others is a powerful way to both honour your own journey and feel a sense of the highest achievement with your social anxiety. It’s also a way of challenging yourself in ways you never thought possible when you first started out. By stepping outside of your comfort zone and sharing your vulnerabilities with others, you are demonstrating the courage and resilience that you have cultivated through your own journey.

With thanks to all the sources referenced and linked to for producing such helpful guidance and resources available to the public and in a way that we’ve been able to use them to create the WalkTheTalk guide. Most notably OxCADAT. Any errors and omissions are our own. Please note the information provided shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. We’re a peer support group sharing content and support that we hope will prove useful. If you feel you need it, always seek professional support from your GP/the NHS and/or therapist.