SUMMARY
Could the fear of change be preventing you from overcoming your social anxiety?
You might feel dependent upon security, comfort, and control, but these needs may simply be disguises holding you back from a life of social ease.
I’ll share how to overcome the fear of change so it will no longer keep you back from the socially confident life you ultimately want.
We cannot stop change from happening, but we can gain control over our emotions in response to change.
Here are some things you’ll learn:
- Hear a story of how I helped someone overcome the fear of change,
- Learn how to uncover resistance to change that may be disguised as something else,
- Hear my current example of dealing with and overcoming this fear myself, and
- Learn how you can use all of this information to embrace change on your journey to overcome social anxiety
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Sebastiaan: Hello, this is Sebastiaan from social anxiety solutions. I’m a social anxiety coach and I help people who have social anxiety to feel calm and relaxed in social situations, so they can connect, enjoy themselves, laugh a little or a lot, have a good time and so on.
And now in this video I’m going to talk a little bit about the fear of change. And when you when you hear this for the first time maybe you’re thinking like well I don’t have fear of change, I just want to be confident I just want to be at ease and there’s nothing to fear about that. And I get it, however, experience tells me having worked with hundreds of people with social anxiety over the past eight years and having gone through a transformation myself where I overcame my own social anxiety, fear of change is present when you look deeper. And I’ll share a couple examples with you to give you an idea.
Story of Overcoming the Fear of Change
So, I’m actually gonna start with the example of Rachel. Rachel works for the social anxiety solutions team, I had a session with her the other day. So, she has a big change coming up in her life which is she’s actually gonna change her lifestyle so she’s no longer gonna live in one particular place and she’s gonna be a bit nomadic, a bit all over the place. And as she’s making that big change things come up for her. So, she noticed that she has two more weeks before her lease runs out and she has no place anymore and yet the only thing she had done so far was bring half of her books to the library and no packing yet. It’s just like I just feel so tired, I can’t do it, I feel grumpy, I can’t do the work I’m normally doing, what’s going on? I’m like well, what’s going on is you’re dealing with resistance. You know, part of you really wants to you know live this nomadic lifestyle and have this freedom and do these things but another part of you is saying no. You know, that’s going to be safe and not beneficial in some way shape or form. And so, she was dealing with resistance, she was dealing with a fear of change.
And so, I want to ask her some more questions, questions when I asked her some more questions we uncovered some stuff that came up for her. So, one of the things that she was concerned about was that she wouldn’t have control over her environment anymore and you know, now she has her own place, she knows where everything is, she can say you know, I’m not going anywhere this is my house. She’s pretty much in control over environment completely. When she lives a more nomadic lifestyle there will be different circumstances that pop up. You know, she’s partly going to you know, spend time with other people in their houses and so on.
And so, as that came up for her, her subconscious was saying, “No, no. That’s not a good thing. You’re gonna lose control”. And control is really important to you because it gives you certainty. If you give that up you know, then what? So, we have to look at well, how can you maintain that sense of control while you make this move so that this move becomes safe and beneficial for you anyway. So, how can we address that fear of change? How can we… how can we convince your subconscious and your conscious perhaps that this change is safe and beneficial? You know, so, that there’s no need to fear this change on any level so that you’re a hundred percent yes to” Man, this is awesome. I’m excited I have energy”, instead of “I have no energy, I can’t pack, I don’t know what’s going on, I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I’m drained” etc. So, in asking her a couple of questions, “Well, what might be difficult about it, what you worried about, what are you concerned about, what could happen, what’s the potential downside, what is an upside of how you have it now?” We kind of uncovered that.
One of the things was the control thing, another thing was the challenge that she had with saying no in certain circumstances. So, and I could relate to this, I’ve definitely experienced it. Maybe you can as well. So, for her it would show up if she would be out with a bunch of friends and she had enough, and she’d want to go home but she’d then feel bad about saying oh you know, “Hey, I’ve had enough I want to go home”. So, she would stick around even though she wasn’t enjoying herself anymore and you know it would drag on and drag on and while actually she just wanted to go home.
So, we did some tapping work to get her… What’s up with my voice today? So, she… We did some tapping work to get her to the point where she felt fine saying no, where she felt confidence saying no, where she felt that it was safe right and easy to say no when she felt like saying no. Now that was energetic work, that was tapping work, that was emotional work. Now I’ll leave out the details as to where that problem with saying no came from, but it definitely didn’t happen in the last 5, 10 or 20 years of her life. It came from really early stuff.
So, once we address that now things got different. Once we address the control issue I’m like, “So, Rach how you feeling now?” – “Yeah, I feel energized now”. Okay, good. Well, I told her you might experience a bit of an emotional up and down because this was quite, quite intense emotional change for you which was instigated by this big move, so, let’s see what happens. And then she emailed me two days later saying that she felt great, she felt energized and you know, the resistance was gone but that the day prior to it the day after our session she felt really, really tired and exhausted. So, that was just she had some processing time and now it was integrated and now she felt good. So, now that the resistance was gone that oh I’m so tired, I can’t focus on anything, I’m frustrated with everything, I’m annoyed. You know, you should have seen her at the beginning of the session Rach is watching this as well. She was quite annoyed and difficult to get a laugh out of. And that’s what happens, the resistance really turns you into a bit of a grumpy person.
So, that was an example for Rachel. So, now for my personal life before I get to that so, let’s look at the parallels of this. Rachel was making a big change or is about to make a big change and whenever we start to make a big change our resistance is gonna come up, our issues are gonna come up, our unresolved stuff is gonna show up. It’s gonna come to the surface. My memento Dr. David Lake psychotherapist, trainer of trainers, therapist of therapist, 35 years of psychotherapy like the most qualified and trained person and the experienced person that I know, he says there are three ways to uncover your unconscious blocks. One way is to look at what you judge in other people, the other way is to set yourself a really big goal. Well, that’s what Rachel pretty much did. She made a goal to change her lifestyle. And the last way is to get into a relationship.
My Current Resistance to Change
So, anyway, so, for me right now I’ve set myself a really big goal as well. So, this thing that I’m working on that I’ve been talking about that’s a really big goal, that’s really gonna change my lifestyle. I’m really gonna have to step up to the plate and you know more is gonna be demanded of me, growth is demanded of me. So, I’m… and I told Rach there’s a couple of days ago I’m experiencing some resistance as well you know. And I’ve got my coach and I’ve got my mentor you know, my healing team to work me through that also. But that started to come up for me and when that comes up for me I sit down and I try to write stuff or I you know, I try to prepare things but then you know, my mind is foggy or I just can’t get myself to sit down or I can only focus for a little bit and like get distracted and that’s just the resistance doing its work because you know my brain is telling me like, “Hey, Seb your life, your life is gonna be a lot harder, you’re gonna have less freedom, you’re not gonna have as much control as you have now. What if it fails, what if this, what if that?” And you know, to my brain it’s not safe, it wasn’t safe and beneficial and therefore I experienced that resistance just like Rachel you know. So, I was in a pissy mood as well and I wasn’t getting anything done.
So, I know what that means when that happens so I’m like alright I’m dealing with resistance. Well, let me contact my healing team, let’s get clear on things and let’s work through that. And you know I meet every week with my coach and I meet every other week these days with my mentor and so you know, I’m an exchange partner. So, I’ve got people to work through stuff with and so I work through it and now I’m aligned again so now I’m excited again, now I have energy when I think about it. You know, it’s the weekends now and I’m away with a couple of friends but you know it’s 8:00 in the morning and I’m making this video for you because you know I’m excited about this. I love what I’m doing and it’s a cool thing.
However, when I was dealing with the resistance if you told me, “Oh, you have to shoot a video”, it’s like “Oh, I got to shoot a video because I do this weekly video thing”. You know, it’s a different world when you’re dealing with resistance versus when you’re not dealing with resistance. So, whenever you make a big change it is common that it’s well, not common, it’s inevitable that stuff is gonna come up for you.
Embracing Change As You Overcome Social Anxiety
So, now how does this relate to you? Well, of course when you’re having social anxiety and you’re gonna make a change to go from social anxiety to social confidence, fear of change and resistance to change is gonna come up for you and that is something that needs to be looked at. And I’ve talked about this before and I’ll be talking about it again because it’s important and I want it to give you a bit of a… a bit of a comforting consideration if you will because I find myself repeating the following to a bunch of clients many times. I’m going to stand up, I’m tired of sitting down. Let me see if we can kind of do that here without the wind being in my face. Yeah, that should be alright. Should it? It should.
So, people like alright let me just talk to you directly. If you’ve been trying to overcome your social anxiety for a while and you’ve tried a whole bunch of things and these things have not worked for you, maybe you’ve tried to change your thoughts, didn’t work. Maybe you’ve tried affirmations, didn’t work. Maybe you’ve tried visualizations, hardly any results. Hypnosis, temporary results. Facing your fears, temporary results. Whatever you might have tried. Maybe you’ve tried tapping, maybe you’ve tried psych-k, maybe you’ve tried other things. And every single time that something like that didn’t work your hope that you’re able to change is just sinking. You’re becoming more and more pessimistic about the ability about the possibility that you can actually make a change. And your brain is starting to draw conclusions like well, change is difficult for me, change is not possible for me, I can’t change, change is hard, change is difficult, it won’t work, whatever I do it’ll fail anyway, nothing ever works for me, it works for other people, but it doesn’t work for me and all of that stuff.
And that in and of itself is also resistance because if you believe that you cannot change, guess what? You won’t change. You know, Henry Ford said at first, I think if these quotas properly, “What do you think you can or what do you think you cannot, you are right”. Alright? But let me talk to that idea of like hey, I’ve been trying to change, and it didn’t work. Well, that is indeed true, it didn’t work, right? It did not work. You’ve tried a variety of things. Sometimes people say I’ve tried everything. I’m like no you didn’t, if you tried everything you wouldn’t have the problem anymore. You tried a bunch of things and the things that you tried didn’t work for you.
Well, have you ever considered that the approaches that you’ve tried were the right approaches for you? And what if a different approach can lead to different results? Doesn’t that make logical sense? What if you haven’t addressed the right issues in the right way? What if your subconsciousness since you’re dealing with resistance thrown up blind spots and had you go in circles like a dog chasing its own tail. It would make progress but fall back progress would fall back because your subconscious is not a “yes” to your outcome of social confidence. And so, 95% of you is not in agreement with social confidence. Well, guess what ? You are five percent of conscious power is only going to get you so far and as soon as you’re not fully in the present aware that your subconscious is running the show and then your subconscious it is gonna bring you back to where you were. So, it’s not possible to make a change, a permanent change unless you have subconscious agreement.
So, what you’ve been trying in the past didn’t work, okay. Well, that makes sense. Now when you try something different, when you try different technique, when you try different approach, when you work with a therapist, when you have a different method, when you go at it in a different way or even better said when you aim at the right targets for you specifically then things are gonna change. When you get a “yes”, a subconscious “yes”. When all parts of you are yes to social confidence and there’s no resistance and then you address the core reasons for why you don’t feel safe socially. You uncover the origins of the threats that your brain is perceiving and then you get rid of that and then you get, you will get to a place where you feel safe socially.
Now that will take… that might take a couple of months for some people and it might take you know, for the worst of the worst cases, it might take a couple of years. Okay, well, isn’t that worth your time? Isn’t it worth your time to be at ease socially? Isn’t it worth your time to be able to connect with someone? Here you’re talking to people you’re interacting with people every single day. You know, isn’t that the most important thing? Isn’t it like I’m gonna do whatever it takes however long it takes in order to get to that place. I thought it was for me.
And I think that it’s important to get to that level of like, “Hey, man, I am so done with this, I’m gonna do, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do it as long as it’s necessary until I get to where I want to be”. And you know, when you have that mindset and you start taking actions things will start to shift and change. And yes, you might you’ll run into challenges and you’ll run into obstacles and you run into blocks but there are solutions for each and every obstacle and block that you get into. And as these obstacles come up for you, you can move past them you know.
And as you do, you grow. So, you know, obstacle for me now with this big project coming up was X. Alright, great. I look at X, I look at why that obstacle was there, I move through it. Great, now I’ve grown, now I’m bigger, now I’m no longer dreading the upcoming change, I’m excited about the upcoming change. I’m no longer worrying about it not going well, I’m excited about what I’m going to be able to help other people with. Yeah, I’m not, I’m not just focused on myself anymore I’m like, “Wow, the meaning behind this is so cool”. You know, what you know for Rachel she’s no longer worried about saying “no”. She’s now able to be more authentic and speak her truth, you know. So, she’s grown as a person because now she’s not restricted. You know, when you have that “I can say yes. I can say no either, it’s fine. I’m good”, now you have boundaries in place, alright? And that’s what keep you safe.
So, I guess this is the end of my rant. I hope that’s been helpful. If you have any questions, concerns, feedback, please leave it in the comment section. And I’ve got something exciting coming up, I’ve told you about this before but like I said I’m working on it and today it’s weekend so I’m going to enjoy my weekend for a bit. And yeah, I will talk to you guys soon. Make sure you subscribe, share some of my videos if you think it should have more views, I appreciate it and yeah… I wish you all the best and I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.
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