Yes, I'd like to overcome my Social Anxiety!

Sign up to receive the FREE
"The 7 Secrets to Social Confidence" Mini Course!

Social Anxiety Acceptance: Myths vs Truths

 

SUMMARY

In this video…

Sebastiaan talks about his initial resistance to the idea of acceptance, but explains that it is an essential piece of the puzzle for overcoming social anxiety.

He debunks common myths about acceptance, such as the belief that it means giving up or being okay with being socially anxious for life and discusses the benefits of practicing acceptance, such as reducing shame and fostering a more self-compassionate attitude.

Sebastiaan offers a simple tapping exercise to practice acceptance and reduce the intensity and duration of Social Anxiety.

Although the Social Confidence Club is not currently open for registration, you can get started by getting our FREE Mini course, “The 7 Secrets to Social Confidence.” 





FULL TRANSCRIPTION

You’re struggling from Social Anxiety and you heard that acceptance is helpful, but you’re not sure about it? Or you’re not sure about how to go about it?

Well, this video is for you.

My name is Sebastiaan van der Schrier, I’m a former Social Anxiety Disorder sufferer and a Social Confidence Coach.

I really, really resisted the idea of acceptance for the longest time. I just wanted to get the hell rid of my Social Anxiety, whatever it took, whatever technique, strategy, or whatever I had to do, I wanted to get rid of it. I definitely did not want to accept it. What a crazy idea?!

And yet, it’s an essential piece, you cannot overcome your Social Anxiety without accepting it and without accepting yourself while you’re dealing with it, but that’s a different story.

Anyway, what I want to say is, there are certain myths about acceptance that caused me to not want to do it, that I’m going to talk about real brief, and I’m going to talk about the benefits. We’re going to be done in just three minutes.

So here are some of the myths:

1. Acceptance DOES NOT mean giving up and throwing in the towel.

A lot of people think that, “Well, if I accepted, it means that I’m okay with being socially anxious for the rest of my life”. No, it absolutely does not mean that.

2. Acceptance also DOES NOT mean that you accept to be a socially anxious person.

This is another thing. That is a fallacy. That is a myth. You’re not a socially anxious person, even if you’ve had it your whole life. It’s not something you’re born with, there’s no Social Anxiety gene, you may have been anxious your whole life, but it’s not your normal natural state, and you can return to your normal natural state, regardless of where you’re at.

3. Social anxiety also DOES NOT mean that you’re going to be passive and that you’re not going to do anything about it.

No, it means that you stare reality in the face, and say, “Okay, this is what I am dealing with. And it does suck. But I’m still going to do something about it”.

4. It also DOES NOT mean that you approve it, that you like it, that you agree with it, or that you want it to stick around.

All of that is not what it means.

Acceptance means “I’m staring reality in the face. And I’m saying yes to it”, because that is the point from which you actually can make changes.

What are the benefits of acceptance? Why is it important to do that?

Well, first of all, it is going to reduce the shame and the upset about it. It’s going to help foster a more self-compassionate attitude. These two things are, in most cases already going to reduce either the intensity, or the duration of how long the Social Anxiety sticks around them, potentially both.

Now, it’s not going to happen just in one go, it takes time to get to that place of acceptance, it’s a muscle that you build. But when you use tapping, you can address your non-acceptance.

In other words, your judgments about yourself, and your upset about the anxiety and your shame that you feel for having it and so on and so forth, and that makes the journey from non-acceptance to accepting the Social Anxiety being yourself a lot easier, a lot quicker, and a lot less hassle.

What acceptance also does is it increases your overall mental health and well-being because this muscle of acceptance is something that you kind of instill as an attitude and you have that then towards other things that happen to you as well.

“Oh, this goes wrong”. You got to learn to accept it, come to terms with it, and the same goes for other emotions.

What to do now?

I can’t give you the whole thing inside our Social Confidence Club (not open for registration right now), but just to let you know, we spend months on it. Lots of lots of exercises in order to get to this acceptance on a big level.

One single simple exercise that you can start doing that’s actually going to be powerful and that’s going to help you is to add tapping to whenever you’re experiencing anxiety.

I understand that you might experience it in a social situation, then it’s hard to start tapping on your face and body with a particular intention that I’ll get to in just a second.

But you likely experienced anxiety in anticipation of social events and you might experience it just after a social event. You might experience it when you’re not really engaging with people, but you’re walking past people, or you’re in the bus or the train, or whatever it is. In these moments, you can practice this particular exercise.

So, you’re tapping, and while you’re tapping, you have the intention to accept and allow the anxiety.

Now, this is very counterintuitive intention because typically, what you want to do is you want to get rid of it. You want to fight it, you want to push it down, you want to not feel it. But this is different, you’re focusing on actually accepting and allowing the anxiety, you might even encourage it, bring it on, “Okay, it’s okay, I’m allowing this, I’m alright with this”.

Tapping is typically done in order to process stuck emotions and release negative emotions, but the tapping you’re doing here is not for that intention. The tapping here is simply to interrupt the pattern and over time, help to sue the anxiety response.

Your intention of accepting and allowing the anxiety should not be used to try to get rid of the anxiety. Because if you’re like, “Oh, I’m going to do this acceptance and tapping trick in order to release my anxiety”, that’s not going to work.

You actually need to have the attitude, “Okay. This is what I’m experiencing. I’m allowing my thoughts and feelings to be there, I’m allowing this, I’m giving it permission to be there, I accept and allow this while you’re doing the tapping”.

This is not instantly going to release your Social Anxiety. But when you do this for a couple of weeks in a row, it’s going to likely reduce the intensity of the anxiety and the duration.

So, when you’re in a social situation, instead of it being there for two hours, it will start to go away quicker.

This is a simple exercise you can do that’s, that’s really going to help you.

I hope this cleared up your ideas about what acceptance really is, what the myths are, and what the benefits are, and a simple technique that you can start using right now.

Now, if you have any questions about acceptance, put them below here in the video.

Make sure you subscribe to get videos on how to use tapping and energy psychology and other mindsets and the best stuff traditional psychology and energy psychology in order to overcome your Social Anxiety.

If you want to get rid of your Social Anxiety completely, I teach you how to do that in this mini course called “The 7 Secrets to Social Confidence”.

That’s the best of my work – 21 years of obsession with Social Anxiety Solutions summarized in 10 simple emails that I have links to my best interviews with psychotherapists, EFT masters, as well as little tap along videos to help you gain some relief and reduce your suffering already.

You can get that by going to bit.ly/socialconfidencenow

That’s it for me. Hyped up. All the best.

Talk to you soon. Bye for now.




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


Sebastiaan
Join me