SUMMARY
In this post, I’m answering a viewer question from Andrea.
Are you struggling to participate with the rest of the world?
Do you find yourself getting bored in social situations? Judging others?
You might be tempted to blame others for this problem…
…but if you notice a pattern then something is working against you.
I’m going over the antidote to this issue of not connecting:
- how to keep the problem from being locked in place so you can shift and change it
- how you can move towards being more present and connected
You can connect with others to the degree with which you connect to yourself. Connection is all within your reach.
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Sebastiaan: Hi, my name is Sebastiaan van der Schrier. I’m a former social anxiety disorder sufferer and a social confidence coach. I help people feel calm, at ease, relaxed, confident in social situations. This week I’m answering a question that I received from Andrea.
Andrea says, “Hi, my following question might have nothing to do with the video”. This was posted under the YouTube video. – “But I was wondering if you could some time to talk about when you can’t connect with people and you get bored in social situations. What aspects do you have to work on in order to not only feel comfortable in social situations but also take the best out of every interaction? In my case it’s like I’m not present and my participation is minimal even when I’m around family. It makes me feel selfish especially when I see the other person is making an effort to socialize but I really don’t want to be like this. Thank you for any help you can provide. You’ve helped me a lot so far. I hope you’re doing great, see you around”.
First of all, Andrea, thank you for your question. Great question. A few quick tips – when you can’t connect with people it means you’re still disconnected from yourself because you can only connect with others to the degree that you’re connected to yourself. This is mostly a matter of self-acceptance or rather a lack of self-acceptance. You’re still too much in your head, you’re still calculating, you’re still judging, you’re still analyzing rather than you being present in the moment.
It even already says it here in the message “I really don’t want to be like this”. I understand that it’s very frustrating that you may feel bored and you can’t give and all of that kind of stuff and you got this internal chatter going on but that’s the remaining problem that you have but there’s also judgment about it. It shouldn’t be this way, it’s frustrating that I have it, why is that they’re so annoying?
And those feelings on top of the remaining problem that you have kind of locked that problem into place and prevent it from being able to shift and change because in order for our change to happen you need to be in acceptance of where you’re at.
“It makes me feel selfish” – That’s another thing. That’s a judgement of yourself. Now you’re in a social situation and you’re aware that you’re bored or you’re not participating and now your inner voice goes “You’re so selfish, you’re judging yourself”.
Now you’re making yourself move away from even further move away from where you want to be which is present and connected. Self-acceptance work is the solution here.
There’s more work to do on that front. I can’t go deeper into that here on this video because I don’t know the actual situation. It’d be a lot easier in a coaching session but something like this is just to give you some quick tips.
I struggled with that myself for a long time where I was just bored and it was just like “Man, everyone is just lame and I don’t really want to be here”. I’m not necessarily anxious. I thought I wasn’t really anxious but just tense, not relaxed, not totally at ease. I was still having rules in my mind about how I had to be and how I should not be and especially also how other people had to be and how they shouldn’t be.
I was judging them – “This guy’s think he’s all that and this girl is way too concerned about how she’s coming across and they’re just having a boring conversation and this one is seeking approval and this one is just like why are they even talking about a topic like this” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of that judging was taking me out of the moment and so then you can’t be present.
Now that judgment of them was actually a projection of my own self judgment. Other words – “lack of self-acceptance”. By dissolving that self-judgment that I had it would turn into self-acceptance. Little Freudian slip there as I still have some self-judgment. That then helped me to not be so judgmental of other people which brought me into the present and as a result I could connect.
I hope it’s been helpful, thanks for your question. It’s a great question. If you’re watching this, I also have a podcast where I interview best-selling authors, psychologists, coaches, healers, psychotherapists for their best social anxiety solutions. I have a lot of interviews at the beginning of my podcast.
At the start I think of like 50 or 60 interviews then it’s quite a bunch of times me with interviews every now and then in between. But I’m most likely going to start interviewing a bunch of people again. So, I’ll have some time on my hands in the nearby future. It’s going to be really cool so make sure you’re signed up and subscribe to that podcast. You can find it in iTunes or Spotify. It’s called Social Anxiety Solutions.
All right, I’ll release another video like this next week on Thursday. That’s what I do. Subscribe here and I look forward to connecting with you next week. Again, if you have a question, let me know. All right, bye for now.
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