Often we react to stress with the schemes prepared by our psyche. A schema is a sequence of internal activity: your personal characteristic of feeling/doing/thinking in certain circumstances in a certain way: to avoid certain situations, to be embarrassed when communicating with someone, to hesitate to act when you really want to, to think about yourself in negative terms, etc. d. And, as can be seen from the examples, the scheme may be ineffective and does not help you live the way you want. There is no point in waiting for the schemes to change on your own; it is much more logical to change them yourself to productive ones. To change your scheme, first we designate it, as in the examples above, but more specifically. Next, we act contrary to the scheme: as we want. But we will have to endure the discomfort of encountering unpleasant experiences and emotions when we “contradict” the scheme and form the desired behavior. Robert Leahy offers this metaphor: If you were afraid of elevators and wanted to get rid of this fear, you would need to go up and down again and again, accepting the associated discomfort... To help yourself really start to change something, you can answer: the following questions: - In what areas of life does the scheme interfere the most? (It is important to give examples!) - In what other areas of life does it prevent you from feeling/doing the way you want? (It is important to give examples!) - What would happen if this scheme did not exist, and instead there was another one that helps you today, is effective? - What price (what exactly) do you pay to support the scheme? - What will your life if you begin to endure discomfort and challenge the pattern? The pattern you are thinking about has existed for some time, perhaps for a long time. She won’t just back down, she will resist. This is worth remembering. And here it is important to take actions that contradict the scheme, and do not reinforce it. But, nevertheless, sometimes it does not take as much time to change the scheme as we think. The main thing is to do it. For example, when reading this text, it is better to give answers to questions in writing (and, of course, with examples) rather than just reading. As you can see, you can start changing something here and now.