SUMMARY
In this post, I’m sharing my most embarrassing social anxiety story.
I share what happened to me and what I was thinking in the moment, how I eventually overcame social anxiety, and my perspective now. See if you can relate and share your own experience in the comments below.
Social anxiety can feel isolating, but you are not alone and there are solutions to this problem.
And once you overcome it, these memories won’t be so painful!
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Sebastiaan: Hi, my name is Sebastiaan van der Schrier and I’m a former social anxiety sufferer and also a coach. I help people overcome social anxiety and I help them feel calm and relaxed in social situations. And I’m the host of a podcast show where I interview Western traditionally trained psychotherapist, coaches, researchers who have incorporated energy psychology into their practice and have seen the results of their clients go through the roof.
So, we’re overcoming social anxiety might never happen, now it becomes possible or where it might take years, now it becomes months. Or where it might take months, now it becomes weeks. So, my website is socialanxietysolutions.com and today I’m gonna to talk about my most embarrassing social anxiety story because I thought that would be interesting to share because maybe you can relate.
And what was interesting for me, it was thinking about this. I actually, I have quite a bit of… you know, I’m 33, I’ve got heard a lot of embarrassing stories in my life but when I thought of my most embarrassing social anxiety story I was actually struggling. These most of the time you’re trying to avoid becoming embarrassed and that’s what the anxiety does. But I found something anyway, so, here we go.
My most embarrassing social anxiety story
So, when I was a I guess 15 or 16, I was in love with this girl named Villa Mine and I think we kissed and I was flirting a bit with her and we were at our local pub in my hometown and we were there with a bunch of friends and they knew that I liked her and they had seen us flirting and they knew that something was going on. And me and her, we were playing some kind of a card game or sitting down on the table and it was us at the end of the table and a bunch of you know, a bunch of our friends next to her and her best friends was sitting next to her.
And then, anyway, I was just being playful, and I cheated on purpose just for fun to get a rise out of her, but she actually got angry with me. And so, I cheated, and she called me out and she got angry and then she made a big scene and involve everyone in it. And it’s like, “Oh, he’s cheating, he’s cheating. Hey, look he’s doing that”. And I got bright-red and so, my face looked like a tomato and everyone saw it. And that you know, I don’t think that it had happened before. It definitely didn’t have not happened before with her. And I felt that it was such an incredible weakness and I felt so pathetic and really judged myself in that moment like, “Oh, my God… Well, there we go. That’s the end of her being interested in me is now she sees that I’m weak and I can’t hold up myself”. And all of these harsh judgments went on.
And of course, everyone saw that I was so embarrassed and that was the most humiliating thing for me at the time. And her best friend saw it and… this is beautiful. Anyway, so, that was my most embarrassing social anxiety story.
Overcoming social anxiety and my perspective now
Now, what is interesting is that for one, that story doesn’t bother me at all, right? This is a long time ago. However, I work with clients that have stories similar to this and it is a long time ago and when they tell them they still feel the embarrassment, they still feel the insecurity, they still judge themselves for how they behaved, they still think that they were weak and that should have done better and that the situation shouldn’t have occurred and they’re angry with the perpetrator and that kind of stuff because they haven’t done the healing work. They’re still stuck in the past.
Other people, because I’ve told more embarrassing stories on videos. A lot of people have said, “Wow, it’s really brave of you to share those kinds of things”. And I’m like, “No, it’s not” because I’m not my past. I don’t identify myself with the past. The past is the past. It formed me, it created who I am today, right? So, I don’t you know, I’m not my past.
And so, therefore I can freely talk about the stuff that happened in the past because it’s no longer relevant, it’s gone. And that’s not a conscious rational logical decision that I made at some point because it’s not like flick your fingers “The past is no longer relevant”. That’s because I’ve done the inner healing work of releasing those stuck emotions of getting rid of the learnings that I had made in those moments.
So, for example with this memory, with the girl calling me out of me becoming all flustered, there was lots of a lot of emotions going on. So, if I had not done any healing work and I would tell you this story right now I would probably feel some fear or anticipation at you know, before even telling you the story and I might feel my heart racing and I would start to relive the feelings from that memory already. Then when I would get to the crescendo of the memory where she called me out on it then I would probably feel maybe not as strong as I felt that at the time, but likely still quite strong shame and embarrassment and I would still have those judgments in place.
And as a result of that in my here and now life whenever I would find myself in situations similar to that, those feelings could get triggered again. But you know, thanks to doing the healing work, doing the tapping, you know, EFT – Emotional Freedom Techniques or you know, some of the other healing techniques that I’ve been talking about in different videos, that’s no longer bothering me.
So, I’ve neutralized the memory. There’s no emotion in it anymore whatsoever. I’ve gotten rid of the meaning that I made out of what happened at the time which formed a belief. Now I don’t know exactly what that was anymore because this is an old, old memory. Probably worked on a long time ago. But it might have been something like you know, “Girls want to embarrass me” or “Girls don’t like me” or “It’s not okay to be the center of attention” or whatever it was. And so, I’ve neutralized that and therefore it’s no longer bugging me.
Do you have a social anxiety story to share?
Now, my question to you is “Do you have an embarrassing social anxiety story?” And if so, please share it below in the comments. Or maybe you don’t have… Maybe it’s not much of a story but it’s more of a circumstance that occurs over and over and over. Like for me for example when people would ask me “So, Sebastiaan, do you have a girlfriend?” That would make me blush instantly. And that’s not much of a story to it, but just that circumstance happened over and over and over and over and over and every time I would blush.
So, whenever I was in a conversation and the topic would lean towards that you know, towards dating, relationship, sex, whenever that would come up I already started to feel a bit of that blushing feeling and I already would feel my heart starting to raise. “Oh-oh, can I escape this? Can I change the topic? Can I move this in a different direction, you know?” And the attention would be on me and the question would be there, or you know something similar to it – Boom, I would have a full blushing attack. So, you know, in what situations do you feel the most anxious? What is most embarrassing for you?
Alright. I’d love to hear from you. I’ll be there in the comments if some interesting story comes out of it or something that I can be helpful with. I might make a follow-up video with some tapping to help release some of the embarrassment for you.
Alright, I hope that’s been helpful. I’ve been talking about some of the techniques that I’ve been using to neutralize this embarrassing experience for myself so that I’m no longer bothered by it in my here and now in my life currently. And one of these techniques is called tapping, formerly known or also known as EFT – Emotional Freedom Techniques which is psychological version of acupuncture but instead of using needles, you tap with the tips of your fingers as specific acupressure points in the body.
It looks really weird, looks really bizarre but it’s used by millions of people worldwide, PhD’s recommend it, it’s been on Dr. Oz, Psychology Today, scientifically proven to be effective, more than hundred peer-reviewed studies have been done on it. It is amazing. It combines Western traditional psychology with Eastern philosophy and it is amazing. It helped me overcome my social anxiety and I’ve used it with hundreds of clients having logged close to 5,000 coaching hours helping people overcome their social anxiety.
So, that technique… I teach you and I teach how to overcome social anxiety using that technique. And I have a little starter kit, a video series where I teach you the technique over a couple of videos and I guide you through an experience of it on a few videos. And you also get my eBook “How to overcome social anxiety completely?” which is totally different than the mainstream you know, “Change your thoughts, face your fears, push yourself to face your fears” and that kind of approach. So, you can get that here, you know, or at the link below the video.
Alright, I hope this has been helpful and I’ll talk to you next Thursday. I release a video every Thursday. You can subscribe right here. Talk to you next Thursday. Bye for now.
If you experience Social Anxiety, click below to receive the FREE “7 Secrets to Social Confidence” Mini Course!
- How To Stop Worrying - January 17, 2024
- How to Reduce Facial Blushing with EFT Tapping? - June 29, 2023
- Are You Scared to Get Anxious? Here’s how to fix it! - June 16, 2023
