With my anxieties (why I was in therapy) I had to first become acquainted with what they were. I started paying attention to when I was avoiding and I'd put a mental "marker" there to look at later, in bed before going to sleep, for example :-) Find THAT you avoid "interesting" and be curious about it, what is going on. That helps get a kind of detective persona looking at things that isn't so emotionally involved. "Hmm, why'd I do that?" goes a long way.

Changing my perspective from being "inside" with the fear to looking at it more objectively and experimenting with it; finding its exact boundaries, what sets it off, when it is easier/harder for me, with whom, etc. and sharing that with T, made the fear more a "thing" a specific object I could manipulate and learn about and get to know and do something about.

The "General Anxiety" is bad because it does not feel like it has borders and it feels like one is afraid of everything. Start with something literal (I was afraid to stop and get gas at "strange" gas stations, I was afraid to ride City buses (what if they didn't let me off when I rang the bell? What if they argued with me? What if they got angry because I rang the bell?), afraid of telephones (answering or calling, either one), for example) and play with it (I took a day off work at an old job to learn to ride the bus to my new job) and gradually learn to state the underlying anxiety; it wasn't buses I was afraid of, for example, it was the putting my neck out and ringing the bell, wanting something for myself that someone else might not want me to have, might object to my having, might think was "wrong". You just start noticing patterns and playing with them like puzzle pieces. My stepmother was very controlling and things had to be done her way and I was "taught" this so, not only did I have to do things my stepmother's way but I was taught there was only one "right" way to do things (her way :-) and it made me anxious and angry if things were done some other way.

It took time to learn that the world was not created by my stepmother and her rules were her insecurities/anxieties and not mine or true.