To learn how to step outside your anxiety box, it’s important that you know when you’re in it and which thinking traps have boxed you in. Each time you feel anxious, write your anxious thoughts (what was going through your mind) and describe the situation you were in when this happened (see exercise 5.2). At times, you may wish to use the downward arrow technique (see
above) to identify the anxious hot thought and then write that in the Anxious Thoughts column.

365