SUMMARY
In this post, I’m sharing the second most common fear as voted by you…
…the fear of others seeing you be anxious.
I’m offering a perspective to consider and a solution for this common fear among socially anxious people.
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Sebastiaan: Hello, this is Sebastiaan van der Schrier, social-anxiety-solutions.com coming to you straight from Holland. Yes, where the weather is kind of all right, not that great.
Anyway, today I’m going to talk about some exciting stuff as usual. What am I going to talk about? Well, I did a poll the other day asking all the people on my email list like “Hey, what’s your number one fear? What’s the thing that you’re afraid of happening most in social situations?”
And the number one was fear of negative judgment. I did an amazing coaching series on that a week ago. But the number two fear was actually the fear of being seen anxious. So, I’m going to talk about that today. So, get ready while I stand in full screen.
Yeah, the fear of being seen anxious. A couple of things going on here. All right, first of all this is often something that is not addressed. It is kind of uncommon for people.
That is my sister’s daughter.
Yeah, the fear of being seen anxious. It’s not often addressed but it’s very important because when you’re afraid of being seen anxious you are constantly in the process of hiding your anxiety. And so, then when the slightest anxiety triggers now you’re like “Oh, no, they can see it. Oh, no, I’m in trouble”.
And that kind of reaction to your anxiety symptoms fires off a stronger fight flight freeze response because now anxiety symptoms themselves have been labeled by your brain as a threat and now you get even more anxious. So, a little bit of anxiety comes up you’re like “Oh, no, I’m going to get anxious. They’re going to see it”. And now the anxiety gets even worse and worse and worse and worse. So, talk about a negative cycle that you can’t get out of. Well, you can get out of. That’s what we’re going to talk about.
When I work with clients and they say “I’m afraid of becoming anxious and being seen anxious by others”, one of the things that I ask them is well, what’s so bad about it? And they say “Well, it sucks. It’s awkward and I don’t like it”. I’m like yeah, yeah but what’s the real problem? And the real problem is how it makes them feel that they see them, that they judge them. It’s fantastic. I’m staying at my sister’s place. Family time, good times.
What it is, is they’re not just afraid of being seen anxious but it is what happens afterwards or during it that is the problem. What is so bad about being seen anxious? Well, then they judge me to be fill in the blank – a loser. They judge me to be pathetic, they judge me to be inferior, they judge me to be not having my act together, they judge me to be an anxious wreck, they judge me to be whatever. That is the thing that you’re actually afraid of.
To be more specific, how that makes you feel if they were to judge you in that particular way is what you’re afraid of. And so, freedom from the fear of being seen anxious actually comes from being okay with however they judge you when you’re anxious.
That means that you have to become okay with them seeing you as a loser, that them seeing you as pathetic, them judging you as this that and the other. There’s a lot of freedom that lies in that because when you’re at that place and that requires quite some inner work but once you’re at that place then when you are anxious in your being seen anxious it’s not that big of a deal for you.
You’re in acceptance in other words of what it is that they’re thinking of you and you’re no longer running away from or resisting what it is that you expect that they’re judging you as.
If you’re afraid that someone will see you anxious and then judges you as a loser but you’re okay with being a loser, it’s kind of a funny thing to be okay with but that then means that, “So what?” They think you’re a loser? Well, I already agree with the fact that I’m a loser. So what? Being okay with being a loser doesn’t mean that you are a loser or that that’s all there is to you. It just means that you’re okay with being a loser just as much as you’re okay with being a winner because there are two sides of each coin. “I am successful and I am a failure. I am a winner and I’m a loser. I’m happy and I’m sad. I’m confident and I’m insecure”.
It’s not just one side of the equation all the time – “I’m happy. I’m confident. I have great sense of humor. I’m intelligent and I’m a really nice guy”. Yeah, I have all of that but I’m also stupid. I have lame jokes. I’m a dick sometimes.
All of those things are all true as well and being okay with all of the above that makes you a whole person and that is what gives you the freedom. Self-acceptance doesn’t mean just accepting only the positive side of you. It means accepting all parts of you.
Accepting your dark side, accepting the emotions that you don’t want other people to see. Accepting the parts of you that are not as easily accepted by society. That’s where your real freedom lies.
Your social anxiety leads you to uncovering what you haven’t yet accepted in yourself. By checking in with “Okay, well, I’m afraid of being seen anxious because that means that I’m going to be judged as fill in the blank”. That “fill in the blank” that you’re going to be judged of is what you’re afraid of them seeing because you haven’t owned it in yourself.
You’re rejecting that part of yourself. You haven’t integrated and accepted that part of yourself.
Now, how to do that is a little bit beyond the scope of a simple video like this but let me see if I can think of something that you can tap on right now in the moment that would be… Well, you just asked yourself the question “Okay, I’m afraid of what exactly when people see me anxious? What’s so bad about it?” Well, you’ll get an answer to that- “Well, what’s so bad about is that I will lose my reputation or they’re going to judge me as a loser”. Okay, well how would you feel if they indeed did that?
Imagine that, feel what that would feel like and now as you have those feelings brought up that becomes your tapping target. Now this is just a start. This is just a way in to dealing with the problem. There’s a lot more to it and I can’t cover it in just this simple video. But what I am going to tell you is that I’m going to do another coaching series. And you know what the title is?
Eliminate your fear of being seen anxious! And that’s where I’m going to coach someone named Damian to overcome his fear of being seen anxious.
I just finished, just yesterday evening in my sister’s house I finished the last of the life coaching webinars with Mahsa where I helped her overcome her fear of negative judgment and it was a massive success. Mahsa pretty much didn’t just overcome her fear of negative judgment, she also came pretty much her social anxiety. And I should quote her a little bit but I haven’t written down the quotes.
This is quite soon but basically what she was staying at the start of the session was that the changes in the previous four life coaching webinars have been phenomenal that she’s no longer worried about what people are thinking of her, that she can be in the moment, that she made amazing connections with people and it just went easy and it just flowed and so she was very happy and excited. And then her remaining sticking point was one-on-one conversations with people.
So, for the remainder of the session yesterday we resolve that issue. Now, she would have to test it out in the real world but at the end of the session she felt fine, she couldn’t get upset about it anymore, she didn’t feel any pressure anymore when she imagined one-on-one conversations with people that she really enjoyed, now she felt comfortable and excited about actually moving into those kinds of conversations.
Whereas at the beginning of the webinar she felt nine out of ten anxious and pressure at the thought of that. So, big transformation. She’s made an amazing transformation and the cool thing is that everyone has been tapping along with that and lots of the comments that I’ve received under those videos, I’m sometimes releasing on my newsletter, sometimes you’re going to hear about them through my new thing “Testimonial Tuesdays”.
And people are loving it because they can relate to the person that I’m working with on screen. Their subconscious links whatever is going on with the person on screens issues to your own issues. And there are so many similarities within the problem that as I work with the person on screen and you’re tapping along with it, you start releasing your stuff. It is really, really amazing and transformational. I’m super excited about all of this.
That’s what was just finished and so now I’m starting a new webinar series. It’s going to be four life coaching webinars and details are going to be revealed probably at the link under this video or in my newsletter itself but check out the details there. That’s going to be very exciting. So, what that is it’s four 90 minutes long live webinars that you get the replays off.
So, you can either be there live with us and by the way, that’s totally anonymous. We don’t see you. You’re just calling in and you see me working with a client, his name is Damien and he really has social anxiety and he has this fear of being seen anxious. You see me help him overcome that fear completely and as you see that you’re tapping along with it. And so, it’s like having a personal coaching session but it’s with someone else. But you’ll be able to relate to Damien and your subconscious will link with whatever is going on with Damien to your issues. And as you start tapping and as you say the phrases that I tell Damien to repeat, as you repeat them as well, you’re getting the benefits from that. It’s going to be very, very transformational, super exciting.
Check out the details for that below this video and then I’ll end this video with a couple of testimonials of the previous one. That one that I did with Massa to give you an idea of the kind of results that you can get and then I will be talking to you very soon. And I’m sure that you’ll find on that page the price that it’s going to cost and it’s only going to be this cheap at the start. So, it’s only for the people that are there live. And I did that with the other one as well. So, if you want to get in, get in now because otherwise you have to pay more money.
Go check that out here and if you like these videos you can subscribe here. I release one every week. I’ve been doing that for two years. My first video is from 2009. I’ve been doing this for a long time. This stuff is really amazing. With this you can really overcome your social anxiety. This is the easiest way to do it. You’re just watching someone on screen and you’re tapping along and as you tap along you release your stuff. It doesn’t get much better than this.
And of course, I always have a money-back guarantee. So, you got nothing to lose and something amazing to be gained. All right, that’s my little pep talk, my little sales pitch for the week. I hope you got something out of it and now go check out this live webinar coaching series and overcome your fear of being seen anxious.
You have a lot more freedom, anxiety doesn’t trigger you anymore, you make big progress and you feel a lot more comfortable and at ease being yourself. When that happens everything in your life improves. Your relationships improve, your career can improve. There’s lots and lots of good things happening when you attack this problem.
So, go! Don’t wait any longer! Go do it now and I’ll talk to you very soon.
If you’re ready for the webinar, you can do that here .
If you experience Social Anxiety, click below to receive the FREE “7 Secrets to Social Confidence” Mini Course!
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