@RockBanana – That really rang some bells for me, especially this: “the new belief will be “I can be outgoing at times, reserved at other times”. I’m inclined to think I’m no good at making friends too, but when I read this, I had a sudden flash of “this week I’ve had a couple of good conversations, where I actually felt quite sociable – that was me too! – I can build on that”.

I’ve used visualisation in the past to change my perspective of things, putting together a mental video of myself in different situations where I felt confident (even if only momentarily), then re-running it repeatedly, cutting all the good moments together to build a feeling of confidence. And it worked – I was able to do a training course that I’d thought I wouldn’t be able to cope with, and go on to get work that I’d previously thought would be impossible for me.

But I hadn’t thought of doing the same thing for changing my view of myself as shy and introspective socially. I’ve also sat down and looked back at some of my past history, and made myself acknowledge the positive aspects of things that I’ve been remembering as totally negative. There were many good things in there that I’ve been totally overlooking. So helpful. (That might have been in response to another post of yours – whatever, it has helped me a lot.)

I really hope your comments are as helpful to jennh. Thanks again.