SUMMARY

In this video…

Sebastiaan shares his personal journey of overcoming Social Anxiety and offers unique techniques to help viewers achieve the same results.

He emphasizes the power of accepting anxiety and releasing negative emotions associated with self-judgment. He provides insights and practical exercises to help viewers overcome the fear of being seen as anxious and find relief from Social Anxiety.

By changing beliefs and releasing emotional attachments through techniques like tapping, individuals can reach a place of self-acceptance and realize that anxiety does not define their worth or determine negative consequences.

This video offers hope to those who have tried various methods to alleviate Social Anxiety without success.

If you want to break free from Social Anxiety and engage in these exercises, get our FREE Mini course:

The 7 Secrets to Social Confidence

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Did you know that you can actually overcome your Social Anxiety completely and feel calm, relaxed, and at ease in social situations?

Even when anxiety does get triggered and someone else sees it, you’re not upset about it or worried about it (of course, you don’t like it), but it’s not a big deal to you.

This probably sounds way too good to be true, but it’s absolutely possible.

In this video, I’m going to walk you through the steps to actually get in there. They won’t be anything you’ve heard anywhere else, including on this channel.

But first, let’s see if we’re on the same page.

I can remember being at a techno party once in a huge warehouse in the Netherlands. I was already feeling anxious just being there because I thought these were all cool guys.

At one point, we’re in a particular room. The two guys who were hosting the party were also the owners of the warehouse. I was super anxious. One started talking to me while the other was watching me as well.

I got visibly anxious—at least that’s how it felt to me.

I would just cringe. I felt like a loser. I didn’t know how to hold a conversation. I was upset about the fact that I was anxious, and it was just getting worse. It was feeling insecure and inferior.

Then, a girl came in. They started talking to the girl and joking around. They kind of knew each other, and they had this thing going on. The girl looked over to me and saw me squirm, rushing into the corner. I was feeling super anxious. Horrible.

That was the end of the night. I didn’t recover from that one.

When I went home, I was so bothered about it, thinking, “Oh my God, if I’m going to run into them again, they have now seen that in me. They’ve seen this weakness in me. I’m such a loser.”

I was very hard on myself for a long time. I feared running into them again.

Can you relate to that fear of being seen as anxious and being really horrible?

Let us know in the comment section. By sharing your story, other people can read it too and feel less alone.

How I overcame the problem

I tell my story from Social Anxiety, Social Ease, and many other videos. So, I’ll keep it really short.

I initially started by facing my fears and changing my thoughts through affirmations, visualizations, hypnosis tapes, and NLP.

Facing my fears gave me a temporary boost of confidence. A couple of days later, I was back. Another time I did it, it wouldn’t stick.

Eventually, I found EFT, which is a scientifically proven, effective technique. It has 125 scientific studies backing up its effectiveness. It looks really weird. You’re tapping with the tips of your fingers on specific acupressure points in the body, and it starts releasing excessively negative emotions.

I started using that, and that slowly but surely began to decrease my Social Anxiety more and more. But it wouldn’t go away completely. I still had my blushing issue as well.

It wasn’t until after years of doing the tapping and making huge progress that I stopped feeling anxious in certain situations. I was feeling totally fine in certain situations, with a little bit of anxiety in other places. I still had anxiety, which wasn’t gone completely. I still had the blushing things.

I was avoiding certain situations in which I knew I was going to blush and get anxious,and people would notice it.

I have to avoid that at all costs because it is going to ruin my reputation. I still had that fear of getting anxious or being seen as anxious.

I had a bunch of sessions with my mentor, Dr. David Lake, who’s a psychotherapist and tapping expert. These sessions were mostly focused on acceptance.

I had already been working with my coach for several years at that time, and acceptance had come back over and over again. But it didn’t really hit me that much until the sessions with David, because afterwards, I came to accept the anxiety. I came to accept blushing.

As a result, the blushing was completely gone. Although the anxiety had not completely subsided, the blushing had. I simply did not bother. It did not bother me anymore. I did not care any longer. When I blushed, it no longer meant these horrible things about me.

That helped me realize, “Wow, there’s really something significant to this acceptance.”

I started learning about it more and using it with my clients. I’ve since discovered that it’s one of the three keys to getting rid of Social Anxiety completely.

Have you tried a whole bunch of things to get rid of your Social Anxiety that didn’t work? You’re probably skeptical that this could work for you, but it really can. It wasn’t just for me.

Just this morning, I was working with a client. She was saying, “I do not feel Social Anxiety, and I just do not think about it anymore.” It reminded me of a testimonial with Kate, the 60-year-old lady who had suffered from Social Anxiety for four or five decades and had overcome it.

I’ll link to that at the end of the video. If you’re having a lot of doubts, you can check out that video.

Let’s get to the solutions.

How do you overcome your fear of being seen as anxious?

Follow along with this little exercise. Close your eyes. I want you to think about a particular social situation in which you feel anxious and make it as real as possible.

See what you would see.
Hear what you would hear.
Feel what you would feel.
Imagine that they see you as anxious.

What are you worried about now that they’re thinking of you?
What are you scared of now that they think of you?
What do you not want them to think of you?

You’ll just say, “I’m afraid they will think I am… (fill in the blank).”

Some of the common answers that people give here are:

I’m weak.
I’m incapable.
I’m a loser.
I’m pathetic.
I’m weird.
I’m awkward.
I’m inferior.
I’m not good enough.
I’m unacceptable.

Whatever it is for you, this has emotional pain associated with it. You’ve learned that somewhere in life, and it was very painful.

As an example, let us say you learned that I am weak. Maybe at some point in your life, when you were little, your dad implied that you were weak. He was maybe suddenly disapproving of you, or he was harshly rejecting you.

Whatever it was, it was painful.

Maybe there was a time or a period in your life when you were bullied. That was very painful. Whatever it was, something happened that was very emotionally painful.

You learned that you are weak, that you are weird, or that you are awkward. During that period, negative emotions were associated with that conclusion.

Shame
Inferiority
Insecurity
Fear
Worry
Dread
Guilt
Embarrassment
Humiliation
etc.

That is all connected; that is the emotional pain associated with that conclusion.

During these painful times, you also came up with the determination to not be that way—to not be weak, to not be weird, to not be awkward. Instead, be strong, normal, and confident, especially in the eyes of others.

If you’re not, your brain learns that that will lead to significant emotional pain.

Next question.

What’s so bad about people thinking that you’re weak?

or weird? Or whatever it is,

What are the negative consequences that you have imagined if it is indeed true that they think that of you?

This is what will get you to think about your negative fantasies and your imaginary worst case scenario consequences. There’s also pain associated with these.

So it’s,

I AM (x)…
(weird, weak, awkward, or whatever people believe I am, blah, blah, blah – there’s pain associated with that.)

…and I expect XYZ negative consequences, which is also painful.

All of that pain is perceived by the brain as a threat. As you know, whenever there’s a perception of threat, it activates the fight flight freeze response, which in turn leads to Social Anxiety symptoms.

You might already experience anxiety because there’s some perception of threat.

You walk into an establishment, and there’s your boss or person in authority. Now, you already feel anxious. The fact that you are anxious and noticing that you’re anxious triggers an even stronger fight flight freeze response because your brain is like, “Oh, anxiety, that’s a threat as well.”

Why? Because…

Anxiety = I am (fill in the blank).
For example, I am weird – which is emotionally painful.

Anxiety = negative consequences.
I’m going to get rejected, or I’m going to be disapproved of just like my dad disapproved of me, which equals more pain.

There’s all this pain associated with anxiety. Anxiety itself has become a threat, which in turn leads to you being stuck in a Social Anxiety cycle.

Now it looks like this:

Perception of Threat (POT) leads to anxiety.
So, whether it is you walking into work and seeing your boss enter the room, being introduced to a stranger, or suddenly becoming the center of attention, whatever it is that triggers you.

Then you became anxious, and now you are aware of your anxiety.

“Oh, I’m anxious. Shit. I hope they don’t see it.”
“Oh, they’re seeing that I’m anxious.”

That leads to POT (perception of threat).

You’re getting anxious because your boss walks into the room. You are now anxious, and you’re noticing the fact that you’re anxious and that you’re being seen as anxious (or at least that’s your perception).

Maybe it’s true or not, but you’re noticing the anxiety. You’re perceiving that your anxiety is being noticed, and you’re noticing it, which now makes your anxiety even stronger.

That perception of threat makes your anxiety stronger. Now, guess what? You will be noticing this anxiety. Your brain is like, “Oh, that’s a threat! Get away from it!” Then you have more, and you’re just looping.

If you’ve ever experienced that, leave it in the comment section.

It sucks. So, what’s the solution?

In order to get over the fear of being seen as anxious, this is the solution:

Noticing anxiety leads to a perception of threat, which, as a consequence, leads to anxiety.

If there’s no perception of threat, there’s no anxiety.

Noticing anxiety = NO perception of threat = NO anxiety (consequences)

What you’re after is this,

I accept Social Anxiety and I accept myself when I experience it.

How do you get there?

You get there by neutralizing the pain associated with your “I am” concept. Neutralize the pain (which includes fear, worry, dread, and so on) with the imaginary negative consequences, like this:

When you experience Social Anxiety, that means I am _____. (i.e I am weird.)

If that is the case, then that’s okay. Let’s also be realistic. Just because you’re weird (maybe you really are weird at that moment) doesn’t mean that you are a weird person all the time.

It’s possible to be weird and feel really bad and ashamed.
It’s also possible to be weird and feel good.

It’s just a matter of getting rid of the negative emotions associated with it.

This is not my best example, but there are people who like to dress really weird or have their whole face tattooed with tattoos, and they are definitely weird and different.

And yet they feel confident. Right?

So, believe me. I’ve done this many times. You can get to the place where you have this feeling (I am weird, I am incapable, I am not good enough, and whatever it is), and it begins feeling very, very painful. But in the end, it’s just a thought.

That’s just what it is. It’s just a thought, but it’s powerful because it has emotions connected to it. It’s an emotional thought. It’s a belief.

You have emotional evidence to prove that belief, and that is what makes it painful. But, with tapping, you can actually get rid of that emotional attachment to that concept of I’m weak, or I’m weird, or I’m awkward, or whatever it is.

You eventually get to…

“It’s not that big of a deal, or I’m fine.”

The next thing is to get rid of the pain associated with these imaginary negative consequences.

Currently, your brain is saying,

“When I experience Social Anxiety, and people see it.”
“That’s going to lead to negative consequences.”
“It’s going to lead to disapproval.”
“It’s going to lead to a horrible reputation.”
“Nobody wants to hang out with me anymore.”
“I’m going to end up alone.”

Whatever it is, that’s just in your mind.

Your mind is playing tricks on you. It’s just fantasies that you have emotions connected to. With the tapping, you can release that. When you do, you eventually get to:

“That’s okay, it’s not that big of a deal. I can handle it.”

A lot of it is just your mind playing tricks on you. You’re catastrophizing. You’re imagining things that are not based on reality at all.

You can change these painful associations by changing your thoughts. That can be a little bit helpful. But it’s far more powerful to actually release the emotional pain associated with that by using tapping.

With some clients, they’re not thinking about it in the right way. Shifting their thoughts about it can give them a bit of insight. But that still doesn’t get rid of the deeper underlying pain associated with this belief that they’re weird, awkward, or whatever.

When you get rid of that pain, you get rid of the shame that goes along with saying, “I am weak, or I’m a loser, or I’m pathetic”.

That’s when there are really profound changes, when you come up with alternative ways of thinking about that.

“Oh, it’s not that I’m weak. It’s just that at this moment, I have some weakness.”

You can get some relief, but the shame doesn’t release completely at all.

Basically, what I’m saying is that we need the best of traditional psychology and the best of tapping. That combination leads to you being able to actually overcome your Social Anxiety completely, where you feel calm, relaxed, and at ease in social situations.

In summary, what you want to do is imagine yourself in a social situation, find out what it is that you’re afraid of, and then come to terms with it.

How do you come to terms with it?
By making it okay, whatever it is that they’re thinking of you.

How do you do that?
By using the tapping to neutralize the pain associated with it.

How do you do that?
Well, I teach it for free in my mini course:

The 7 Secrets to Social Confidence

You can get this by going to https://bit.ly/socialconfidencenow

I want to end this by saying, this is something you can really overcome. Other people have done it.

Here are some video testimonials.
Here is one that I promised about Kate.

This is really inspiring.

Keep hoping. You can really overcome this. See you in the comment section. Bye!