Social anxiety can feel debilitating, but don’t mistake it for being socially inept or weird. As with many perceived problems in life, we tend to give our anxieties far too much credence. If you struggle with social anxiety, make sure you are defining “social anxiety” for your own experience. After defining and observing, you may discover that you are not socially anxious at all.
Is it really that you’re socially anxious, or is it that your expectations are too high, your beliefs are preconditioned, or your perceptions are based on lofty ideals? Think about this carefully.
One person may think of ‘social anxiety’ as feeling panicky, clammy, tense, or nervous in a large crowd of people (let’s say ‘large’ is more than 5 or 6 persons); whereas another person may think of ‘social anxiety’ as feeling enslaved to various tensions during one-on-one conversations, such as experiencing inner turbulence, agitation, or impatience when first introduced to someone new. The word “social” is so broad!
First, define “social anxiety” for your unique life experience. Some things to think about when determining your definition are: when do you feel socially anxious, around what types of people, does it manifest while being around many people or fewer people, in what environments (casual, classroom, business, family, etc), what does it cause you to do or not do, and what thoughts precede and proceed the experience?
Next, consider the possibility that you are not impacted by social anxiety, but instead are experiencing conditioned, habitual reactions to past negative occurrences or trauma, or perhaps this is how you have been taught to respond in social situations or have been taught to believe you need to react in social situations. For example:
Jim was bullied in grammar school for his loud laughter. He did not have a healthy support system inside nor outside the classroom to reassure him that it is okay to laugh. Fast forward many years, Jim started college and is highly anxious that he won’t make friends, as he continues to believe that if people hear him laugh he’ll be bullied, rejected, or disliked. Thus, Jim intentionally acts stoic on the outside, while on the inside he is anxious, concerned that his college peers will discover his loud laughter.
In that example, is it Jim’s fault that he experiences anxiety at college? Of course not! People go years, and even lifetimes, unaware that their social anxiety stems from one or a few terrible experiences in the past. Jim didn’t have a proper support system in grammar school, the teacher may have been oblivious to what was occurring in the classroom, and the children may have been especially rambunctious…so many factors could have been at play; but regardless, Jim developed a conditioned belief that his laugh causes people to mock or dislike him. If you heard Jim’s boisterous laugh, you would probably love it! After all, the world needs more laughter!
So, what is your experience? How do you define social anxiety for you? What is your “laugh”? What is the thing that you believe people will reject, mock, dislike, shame, bully, etc? Define it!
Identify the lie, the negative thought pattern, the erroneous belief, the conditioned perspective…identify the “thing” that is the captain of your “social anxiety.” Then you can beat it. It will vanish once you have called it out into the fray. Once you call it out for what it is…nothing.
Also, it would be easy to tell you, “Hey, don’t worry. You are fine just the way you are and others will love you regardless of what you think and how you act.” But that’s not true, and you know this. The truth is that you are who you are, regardless of how others perceive “you;” and people will perceive you, themselves, and everyone else differently, and their perceptions will change.
You can be the most perfect, beautiful, intelligent, fun, and sociable person on the planet, and yet 20–30% of people will dislike you for reasons beyond your control and that have nothing to do with you. In other words, social anxiety may be a “you” anxiety. Get to know who you are. Spend more time and energy observing yourself without judgment and in a spirit of acceptance, peace, and love.
The more comfortable you can be with yourself in the present moment, the more comfortable you can be amid any human being.
