All anxiety starts with a single thought.  Despite how high our levels of anxiety are, they all started with a single thought.  Our thoughts can escalate from one to one million in a nanosecond.  A part of anxiety recovery is learning to identify the first thought.  To Examine our thoughts.  If we can start to employ the tools and techniques at the beginning of our anxiety, they will be more effective and we can minimize the overall duration of the anxiety.  And begin to create a new conditioning which will lead to anxiety recovery.

At the beginning of recovery, it is more difficult to separate the thoughts.  Or be able to see the first thought.  Usually, at the beginning of anxiety recovery, we are so hypersensitive to the fear in general, that we just get fully consumed by it.

But as we practice and we engage the process, we start to be able to see patterns and habits that we have.  We start to see the triggers ahead of time and how the anxiety responds to these triggers.  And it is during this time that we can start to see where and when the first thoughts start to arise.

The first thought may start well ahead of a trigger situation.  If someone has a fear of flying and they book flights months ahead of time, that person will have increased anxiety for months.  Just knowing that someday in the future they will be flying is enough to cause them to have increased anxiety.

Learning to Examine our thoughts is a process.  It takes time.  And it mostly happens naturally as we begin to incorporate these points of recovery into our lives.  But it will be something that we need to focus on from time to time and pay attention to how our thoughts work and affect our anxiety.