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Own Your Social Anxiety to Overcome It

 

SUMMARY

In this post, I’m sharing how you can own your social anxiety to overcome it.

You cannot change it unless you own it and here I’m explaining why. We’ll also do an exercise together to start to chip away at the social anxiety problem.

Here are some things you’ll learn:

  • Why owning that you have a social anxiety problem is a required step to overcoming it
  • Why you are not in fact a socially anxious person
  • A technique you can use to overcome your social anxiety
  • A tap along exercise to start to shift around the problem
  • How to release the perception of danger so you can connect with others and be yourself

Journey from social anxiety to social confidence by putting in the work.

This is the starting point so let’s get started!

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Sebasiaan: Hello, this is Sebastiaan from social-anxiety-solutions.com and I’m here with a quick social anxiety tip and also a little bit of tapping, a particular technique to help you make some progress on your journey to social ease. So, really quick, I’m a social anxiety social confidence coach and I’ve been helping people overcome social anxiety since 2009. So, quite a long time. And I also have a podcast where I interview psychologists, coaches, healers, psychotherapists and so on to prepare their best social anxiety solutions. You can check that out in iTunes just type in social anxiety solutions, popular podcast.

You Cannot Change What You Do Not Own

Now in this video this week I want to talk about the following concept – You cannot change what you do not own. What does that mean? Well, the fact is that you’re having a problem with social anxiety and you need to own that, you need to come to terms with that. A lot of people actually aren’t. They’re avoiding it on some level, they’re not agreeing to it, they’re fighting it, they’re resisting it. And as you might know as Carl Jung said the famous psychologists – “What you resist, persists”. And what you accept you gain power over.

And acceptance of what you’re dealing with is actually a precondition for change. That means it’s essential. It’s not nice to have acceptance, it doesn’t make change easier no, it’s essential.

So, you first need to come to terms with wherever it is that you’re at and people often make the mistake of associating who they are, their identity with beings because they’ve been feeling anxious for such a long time and maybe even for their whole life that they think it’s them.

They’re just a socially anxious person or a nervous person or a shy person or whatever.

Well, not true. You’re just a person who was experienced this alarm going off this anxiety alarm going off so many times that it can seem like “Wow, I’m an anxious person but that’s not true”.

Resolve your social anxiety problems with Tapping

So, anyway we’ll do a little bit of tapping on that. If you don’t know what tapping is tapping is the technique that I use to overcome my own social anxiety along with the help of some great therapists. And it’s one of the main techniques that I used to help my clients go from scared, anxious, nervous, terrified, afraid of upcoming situations, beating themselves up after social situations, in a social situation, worrying about what other people think, adjusting their behavior to please people, worrying about is he gonna approve of me is she gonna reject me, I’m afraid of running out of things to say, I feel insecure about who it is that I am, I feel self-conscious, I’m afraid of being the center of attention – You name it.

All of those problems and many, many more they’re all very common and they all respond very well to treatment with this particular technique that I’ll guide you through in just a second.

And the technique is very simple, it is a psychological form of acupuncture. It looks really weird it’s really bizarre this is the first video that you see of this you probably think like “Yeah, right. What the hell is this?” But check out the other videos, check out the comments below these videos. When you actually do it, it starts to shift things in your emotional world. It comes from EFT which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques and it’s a silly-looking yet very effective tapping technique that regulates your emotional world it. It releases stuck excessive negative emotions.

And so, studies have shown by the way there are more than a hundred peer-reviewed studies done on energy psychology EFT falls under the umbrella of energy psychology and more than 20 peer-reviewed studies have been published on the effectiveness of this technique including in the APA – The American Psychological Association. So, yeah, this stuff really works, it’s really weird, if it’s very new for you perhaps.

So, what it does is the tapping sends them that was signal to the part of your brain called the amygdala which regulates your hormones your emotions. The studies have shown that it decreases the production of cortisol the stress hormone and increases serotonin your happy hormone. These biochemical responses create a sense of calm, so you focus on something that upsets you, you do the tapping and then you experience calming down a soothing of the emotion.

All right. So, let’s do a little bit of it and just see what happens. Okay, so, just want you to tap on the side of your hand and if you don’t know where I’m tapping simply guess where I’m roughly tapping. And it’s a very forgiving technique you’ll still get something out of it, okay?

Tap Along Exercise

So, tapping on the side of the hand karate chop. I just want you to think about the problems that you’re having, the challenge that you’re having with the anxiety and how much it sucks. Now if you consume to do a tiny little bit of tapping and I just want you to notice how you feel as you’re thinking about that and then just repeat after me out loud while you know monkey see monkey do plus repeat what the monkey says me, and you copy it. Alright okay, here we go.

Alright say “Even though I have a social anxiety problem and I wish I didn’t have it. In fact, I don’t really have a problem or maybe I do. And I want to find a way to accept myself anyway. Even though I have a social anxiety problem and it’s not fair, why do other people not have it and why do I do have it. It’s not right that I have it and I don’t want to own it. It says all sorts of bad things about me and I want to try to accept all the feelings that I’m having. Even though I have this social anxiety problem and it really sucks. Maybe it’s not who I am but it’s just what I have. I have a problem. It’s not that I am the problem and I want to try to accept myself a little bit more because I’m already having such a hard time with this problem.”

Good. Beginning of the eyebrows, “I have this social anxiety problem”. Side of the eyes, “I shouldn’t have this problem. Under the eyes, “But I do”. Under the nose, “I refuse to accept that I have this problem”. Chin, “I’m not gonna come to terms with it”. Collar bone just randomly tap there. “I refuse to accept that I have this problem”. Step in the general area where I tap. Under the arms, “I refuse to come to terms with it”. On the wrist point, “I do not have social anxiety”. Top of the head, “I’m totally fine”. The beginning of the eyebrows, “I don’t have that problem”. Side of the eyes, “Or maybe I do”.  Under the eyes, “Says all sorts of bad things about me unless that I’m weak, that I’m a loser, that I’m pathetic”. On the chin, “Unless it doesn’t”. On the collarbone, “Yeah it might be what I have”. Under the arms, “But it doesn’t determine who I am”. Liver point, “I’m not defined by my social anxiety”. Wrist point, “It’s simply where I’m at”.

Top of the head, “I have a problem but I’m not the problem”. But it’s something I can start addressing. Take a deep breath and relax. Just notice how you feel and hope it’s been helpful.

Release the perception of danger

Now we just did a tiny bit of tapping and this tapping actually needs to apply to all the smaller aspects that make up your social anxiety problem. And there are many but with this small technique, which isn’t just a relaxation technique, you can actually aim it at the causes of your social anxiety which are by the way the beliefs that cause the perception of danger socially.

So, through beliefs like “Not good enough, can’t make mistakes, people don’t like me, can’t trust anyone” etc. through these beliefs there are like lenses through which you observe social situations and these beliefs are the real problem and these beliefs are just emotionalized thoughts that you picked up at some point in your life from painful experiences and therefore they feel really true. Like on a subconscious level you resonate with those beliefs.

You can chip away at these beliefs and you can release those beliefs and then step by step you can get rid of these beliefs and then there no longer is a perception of danger. Your brain then sees, “Okay, there is no danger here then.” It doesn’t activate the anxiety response it doesn’t activate the fight flight freeze response which results in your anxiety symptom and as a result of that you’re free of your anxiety. And you go back to your natural state of being.

I’ve done that clients have done that it is very much possible. That’s the good news. Bad news might be it won’t happen in a simple tap a long video because I’m just giving you a tiny little itty-bitty taste of what’s possible and I do that in many videos. But there’s real work required in order to go from “I’ve been anxious for a long time” to “I’m free of my social anxiety”. There is a personal journey that is required where you learn about your inner psychology where you shift and change your mental and emotional inner world around where you shift and change your beliefs around, where you’re basically unlocking your true self. And I know we’re living in a quick-fix society but it’s not going to happen overnight, it’s not going to happen in two weeks not even going to happen in a month though there are rarer cases in which case it does happen in a month but you know on your own watching a video it’s nice, I hate to be the bringer of bad news but it’s not going to go that fast. However, you can make profound changes in a month and you can significantly reduce your anxiety in a month.

So, just giving you a bit of perspective to get to the place where social anxiety is not a problem anymore and you’re just at ease and you’re relaxed and you’re comfortable, you’re joking around and you’re having a good time you look forward to social situation.

You’re actually connecting to someone when you meet them, and you look them in the eyes and you just feel good because it’s nice to connect and connection energizes you and nourishes you and makes you feel good and you enjoy hanging out with people and it’s fun.

Like that kind of state getting there from super anxious for your whole life, that’s a journey that’s not going to happen in a couple of tapping sessions, but you can get there if you’re willing to put into work.

So, the question is are you willing to put into work?

Alright. I’ll leave you on that note – Own the problem that you have. Come to terms with it because acceptance is a precondition for change. Come to terms with it, start taking the steps in order to get to this ultimate outcome because I hope that that’s your ultimate outcome because your ultimate outcome is actually just your normal natural authentic, genuine state of being which is you as you came out of the womb and which is you that you can return to when you get rid of all the programming which you can use tapping for, for example.

Well, I hope it’s been helpful. I release videos like this every Thursday and you can subscribe somewhere here. There’s a link below this video where you can get more of these tapping videos like a whole little mini course for free on my website. And I also share how I overcame my own social anxiety completely and how you can do the same. And that’s a below this video.

So, I hope that’s been helpful. Thank you for being here and I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.

If you experience Social Anxiety, click below to receive the FREE “7 Secrets to Social Confidence” Mini Course!


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