SUMMARY
How do you talk to yourself in social situations? And how do you feel about yourself after having an embarrassing or bad experience?
Maybe like many, you beat yourself up.
It’s a normal response if you thought at some point that beating yourself up would bring you results you want, but our subconscious minds don’t actually work this way.
Have you ever been talked down to for screwing up, now or as a child? I’m sure it only made the problem worse. No one is in their best, strongest state when they feel down on themselves.
In this post, I’m sharing how to stop talking down to yourself, when dealing with something like social anxiety, so you can actually start working on the root of the problem.
The alternative is to put a lid on it and hold onto the problem for the next time…or forever. It’s totally up to you. Why not just start the healing now?
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Sebastiaan: Hey, this is Sebastiaan from social-anxiety-solutions.com. I’m a former social anxiety disorder sufferer and a social conference coach. I’ve been coaching people with social anxiety for the past ten plus years and last week I found myself saying something to a client that I’ve noticed myself saying over and over and over again. And I thought it would be helpful to share it with you so that hopefully you can learn something from it.
Now, actually as you’re listening to me, as you’re watching this and if you’ve already seen a bunch of my other videos be worthwhile to watch this video while you’re tapping. So, if you’re already familiar with the tapping points just be tapping on your tapping points throughout this whole little five- or ten-minutes chat because that’s going to help your understanding, your perhaps new understanding or perhaps repeated understanding go deeper. It will go deeper in. It will be more helpful to you.
Okay. So, let me share a little story. Last week I’m working with a client and he tells me about how he’s been beating himself up after he got anxious. He has kids. His little son and his son is four and I said to him, it was like – Hey, imagine that your son comes to you and he’s like – Dad, I’m scared to go to school. And you react to him in the following way – You pathetic little shit. You shouldn’t be afraid. What’s wrong with you? My God, man up! Don’t be such a little wimp! Come on, you’re so pathetic. I don’t love you anymore if you feel that way. Now get away from me now!
So, it’s an interesting thought exercise for a father. He was very versed to that idea logically self thankfully so. And I said no, let’s look at a different kind of approach. Now your four-year-old son comes to you and he’s like that I feel scared about going to school. It probably won’t use the word anxious, right? Or I feel scared about going to school and your reaction is like – That’s okay. We’re all scared sometimes. I’ve got your back no matter what. I love you. It’s okay to feel a bit scared. Come here and give me a hug and if you want, we’ll talk about it. I love you. You are great no matter what. I’m always behind you.
Wow, totally different experience for that four-year-old, right? Now, that relates directly to how you treat yourself when you get anxious. Do you treat yourself like the harsh horrible mean father or do you treat yourself like the nice loving kind father? Because that makes all the difference in how your social anxiety develops in that particular moment. So, if you experience social anxiety and you’re the mean harsh dick of a father to yourself, guess what happens? Guess what happens to that four-year-old when he’s that way? That four-year-old will get more scared and now he will also feel ashamed. Now he will also feel guilty. Now he might even feel sad. Feel really upset. It has become an even bigger deal and he’s now “Oh, I shouldn’t feel the way I feel”. The four-year-old gets all confused and all overwhelmed and there’s so many things now to deal with. Do you see where I’m going with this?
Turn it around. How will that four year will feel with the nice kind loving father? Soothe. I’m okay even though I feel the way that I do. I am backed up, I’m loved. Even though I feel this way I’m okay. It’s not that bad to feel this way. See? It’s very different.
So, you can either be the mean harsh dick father or mother. This is it happened to be a guy client. It’s about 50/50 clients that I work with. Maybe 55% male. A little bit more male. Almost even.
Anyway, getting off track. It’s been a long day. Anyway, back to the topic. So, you have the option to be your mean dad or your kind of loving dad. So, that’s something I want you to consider.
Now, this idea doesn’t necessarily mean that’s instantly in your subconscious and every single time you will be the nice loving kind dad to yourself. I wish it was that easy but it is now a concept. This means you have now more ways of going with your thinking. You will be able to catch yourself in the act of being the dick father and then you can turn it around. And every time you turn it around you make it easier to go to the nice loving father the next time or the nice loving mother the next time. It takes repetition, it takes time and tapping is going to help with this.
Now, I shared this story with my client because I wanted to introduce him to the concept so he would be more self-aware and he would have more options. After that though, we were actually addressing the root cause of that problem itself which have to do with self-shame, no self-esteem. All sorts of other stuff that I won’t go into.
So, this is just a simple technique but it’s something that’s helpful that you can start using. There’s a lot more that you can do to break down that self-rejecting beating yourself up, internal automated voice. But that’s beyond the scope of this video. So, I hope this is helpful. Check it out. How are you going to treat yourself? Like the harsh horrible dick of a father or a nice kind of loving father?
Practice it. See what happens. Let me know in the comments below what you think of this or if you have any insights or if you have any tips to share in terms of how to be more self-compassion.
So, thank you for being here. I release videos like this every week. Subscribe here and I’ll 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!
- How To Stop Worrying - January 17, 2024
- How to Reduce Facial Blushing with EFT Tapping? - June 29, 2023
- Are You Scared to Get Anxious? Here’s how to fix it! - June 16, 2023
