SUMMARY

In this post, I’m going over the power of community when you have social anxiety.

Here are some things you’ll learn:

• What it’s like when you’re just starting from scratch
• The benefits of community
• How to get started today to find your own community

I’m also announcing an idea I’m having for a community for people with social anxiety.

I’ll share tons of examples and what has worked for me to become a part of multiple communities. So you can be on your way to find one or more that is right for you.

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Sebastiaan: Hello, this is Sebastiaan from social-anxiety-solutions.com. I am a social confidence coach and I help people with social anxiety to feel calm and relaxed in social situations so that they can connect, have a good time, enjoy themselves, have fun, those kinds of things. And I help people go from social anxiety to social confidence using a combination of Western traditional psychology as well as Eastern energy psychology. And if you’re curious about what that is go check my website social-anxiety-solutions.com or check one of the gazillion videos I’ve got online.

So, in this video I want to talk a little bit about the power of community. So, I’ve been abroad for 10 or 12 years and I’ve lived in different places and so I’ve had to start socializing from scratch several times and that’s been quite challenging, and I think that when you’re having social anxiety that is something you might struggle with as well. And that’s where a community can be very helpful.

Community can also be very helpful in being supported and being guided through the tough times and you know, there are a whole bunch of benefits, amazing benefits about you know about a community when you are part of a particular community. And you know, you’re probably already part of certain communities, maybe you are part of an online community, maybe you play a sport and maybe you play football and you are part of the football community, maybe you travel, and you are part of the couchsurfing community, whatever.

There are variety of communities that you can be part of and I’ve been think I’ve been thinking about communities quite a bit lately and I’ve also you know done a bit of studying about what the value is of them and what makes a community positive, you know, what makes a community work. It’s fascinating and I’ll get into some of the you know I’ll give you a little list of the positive benefits of it but before I do I just want to talk a little bit about what I find to be valuable and what might be helpful for you when it comes to community.

So, part of what got me thinking about this is I recently started salsa dancing, a couple of months ago, maybe three months ago and I’m really getting into it for a variety of reasons. It says it’s really awesome and so, now I’m kind of part of yet another community – a salsa community. And it’s very interesting all the benefits that I’m getting out of that. There’s friendship, there’s you know together we’re growing towards a particular outcome, you know, I want to I want to get good at this now. It’s exciting.

In the beginning I was like okay well I’ll have a couple of lessons and I just want to be comfortable on the dance floor and that’s it but I’m pretty comfortable on the dance floor now even though I’m still think I’m not great, far from it, but I’ve seen amazing dancers on the dance floor now and how they dance and move and it’s beautiful and intuitive and sensitive and sexy and sensual and it’s just spectacular. I’m like okay I want to get good at that and I want to do whatever it takes to get to that place. So, it’s gonna probably take a couple of years of practice but it’s worth it.

You know, I’ve gone through a couple of transformations or I’ve found myself in a couple of paths that when I take them it takes a long time where it’s you know, that’s relative anyway but it takes a period of time to get good at something or to get a particular outcome but I know that when I actually go through that process I’m gonna get to the other side and then the benefit that I’ll get is you know so worth the journey.

Like to be having overcome my social anxiety was very challenging. It took for me a long time, but it’s been so worth it, right?  And so, I know that with the salsa thing I know I can get to be a really great dancer it’s just a matter of practice and you know the right kind of practice perfect practice. Probably don’t want to use the word perfect for people with social anxiety but practice, improving, getting feedback, doing the right kind of steps, making adjustments and so on so.

I’m part of this community now and it’s so much fun because we’re learning together, we’re making mistakes together, we’re laughing together, we’re meeting up, they’re different kind of meetups related to the salsa, everyone is kind of wanting to help each other grow and it’s just a lot of fun and it’s a great way to meet new people and make new friends. And this is the salsa community that that’s just one example.

When you’re starting alone from scratch

But you know, before in my life I think I’m kind of starting to mess up the timeline of this, but I think maybe eight years ago or seven years ago I moved to the Philippines and when I came there I had no friends, right? I was just by myself I was arriving in the Philippines and prior to that I had stayed two months in Bali and I got really lonely because there was nothing much of a community going on here. There were just travelers that were passing through that were here for a couple of days.

And so, I would kind of meet, both I was drunk, and we would have the you know to stand there chitchat where are you from where you go and what are you doing what are you going to do tomorrow, and you know, I might have a couple of drunken conversations or I meet a couple in my guest house or something but it got quite lonely.

And so, my goal when I moved to the Philippines was to create a social life and one of the one of the things that I was gonna do was say “yes” to any invite I get regardless of how I feel I say “yes” to it and I did. But prior to going to the Philippines I had heard about couchsurfing and I had tried some couchsurfing in Bali and that is where it’s a website where fellow travelers meet and that is a community in and of itself.

So, before I moved to the Philippines I contacted one of the moderators of a couch surfing forum and she did put me in touch with someone and when I arrived I actually had this this American guy picked me up from the McDonald’s and show me around and you know, tell me a little bit about Filipino culture and then I got invited to go to the amazing race at this island in Tacloban and we were drinking and having fun and then that this was all like a couch surfing event and then I was invited to the next couch surfing the event which was someone’s birthday and I went there. We’re all drinking and having fun I mean great time and then I got invited to go travel with them somewhere else and before I knew it I was part of this whole couchsurfing community.

And that’s the brilliance about a community as well. You meet one or two people and they’re part of a bigger community and you just easily meet people and you have a whole group of like-minded individuals.

So, if you’re into traveling check out couchsurfing culture, couchsurfing.org. If you’re curious or interested in salsa you know type in salsa and the name of your city. You’re gonna enter and get lots of options.

Now it might be a bit uncomfortable in the beginning but there’s a lot of support in community and I just want to list out the benefits that I found reading a bit online and thinking about community and here we go.

The benefits of community

Alright, here are some random benefits because of course depends on the kind of community that you’re in but some of the benefits are of course

1. Connection: making connections building relationships and forming friendships with like-minded people.
2. New skills: Often, you’re learning new skills, so you know, I’m learning new salsa routines. You know there’s the “digital nomad”. I don’t like the term that much but it’s basically an entrepreneur that moves from place to place. I don’t really move from place to place I live in one place but anyway that’s a particular community as well and there’s a lot of skills that we share.So, a buddy of mine he’s a WordPress expert so if I need anything done with my website I can contact him, and he comes to help me out. If a friend of mine hey okay so recently a friend of mine got into an accident and she was traumatized afterwards well I happen to specialize in trauma release exercises you know I do the tapping and I do a variety of other techniques so I’m gonna help her out there.So, you help each other out and they learn the tapping and I learn a bit about website development and that kind of stuff. And in this entrepreneurial community people do skills share so they share their skill, you can take things away from it. So, yeah, that’s a great thing so you learn new skills from other people.
3. Support: Their support in difficult times. Yeah, that’s so valuable. You often when you’re in a particular community you work towards a common goal. So, for example there’s the vegetarian community or the vegan community you know they have a particular goal of eating healthy and avoiding you know, meat and sugar and you know dairy and that kind of stuff. So, they have that that goal in mind and usually they have a bigger vision as well of I don’t know a whole world of people that don’t eat meat or whatever it is.
4. Sense of belonging: Next. Stop feeling so lonely isolated and alienated and feel a sense of belonging. That is big. That’s what one of the things that draws me into the community as well, the salsa community I’m talking about right now. We’re in this together and we’re all learning and Agoon, he’s one of my teachers he just loves teaching that he loves helping you improve. So, even though we’re outside of class he will still during social dances he will give you tips, you know, he will give you tricks and you’ll stand there, and he’ll dance with you and it’s just great. Usually it is a place where you have all the resources that you need.Okay. So, the salsa community that I’m part of here there’s I can do private classes where I’m dancing one-on-one, there’s group classes, I can dance with men if I want to, I can dance with women if I want to, there are different kinds of places where I can go to, there are salsa syllabuses where if you say it like that… where you can figure out how to you know what the names of particular moves are, there’s just you know, a place where you have all the resources that you need.
5. Mutual Growth: And next, you’re growing together while you’re taking care of each other. So, for example, I was just dancing with this girl and we’re doing this simple and it’s called cross body lead lady’s left turn and she’s quite new, so she can’t do the left turn. So, yeah, I’m gonna help her and say okay well tell me what speed you want that to be done it. Okay, you would you want me to go slower? Yes. Okay, let’s do it slower. Is this slow enough? Yeah, okay.And when I’m dancing with a girl who’s more advanced she might tell me oh, you want to hold your hand more like this and you know, after we before for example after it bends the other day, after a class the other day I hadn’t really mastered to move yet and some of the girls in the class also hadn’t really mastered it yet so afterwards I’m like okay I want to practice. Anyone want to practice with me? And so, there I can help them, they can help me. It’s like you’re growing together and you’re taking care of each other, it’s great.
6. Built-in accountability: Community also has accountability in place. So, the social dances are it’s kind of what is most nerve-wracking for people because now you heard her you’re putting the dances that you’ve learned, you’re putting them into practice, and it’s not that easy. And now you’re going to do that with people you don’t know. So, you’re gonna ask people to dance, you’re gonna dance with them and so it’s easy to avoid that especially in the beginning, but if you have a community that you are part of and people are inviting you and they’re expecting you to come then you’re more likely to go. Someone is waiting for you, someone wants you to be there.
7. Encouragement: Next one, encouraging each other. People give you a lot of compliments and they want you to succeed. If you’re in the right community that is. So, they encourage you, they give you compliments, they tell you what you’re doing well, “Hey, I’m really impressed by how dedicated you are to this” or whatever. And that encouragement it just feels good.
8. Common interest: Next, and that’s the last one. I think most important one. You have either a common interest or a shared concern. 

Social Confidence Community

So, yeah, I’m talking to you now and this is also part of why I’m so interested in this. I want to create a social confidence community. Social confidence is the outcome that we’re after. That’s the vision, that’s the common goal that we have, the common interest that we have. And the common concern that we have is social anxiety, the problems that come with it, and how to overcome it.. Okay? So, I guess that’s what I wanted to say about community. It’s a bit of a primer a bit of what’s going on in my head around this topic. I’m having ideas about social confidence community, and what that will look like, and how people will benefit. And I just wanted to put this out there, a couple of thoughts about community.

I want to hear your thoughts about community. What would it be like to be part of a community that is moving towards social confidence, that’s moving away from social anxiety. Where you are supported, where you can connect with people. Where you can make friends, where you’re encouraged. Where you can express yourself without judgment. Where you have like-minded people all aimed at the same goal. Okay.

So I just wanted to put that out there and get you thinking about that. So if you have any suggestions, comments, feedback, leave it in the video below. And just in general, I invite you to start thinking about what community might I be joining that can expand my life, expand my life quality, make my life bigger.

These are really quick examples.

There is a common martial arts community. A lot of guys are doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or Muay Thai. There is a yoga community, there is AcroYoga community. There is Parkour, yeah that’s the name, where you’re running up and down and jumping off stuff. There is the dancing community, Salsa community, Bachata community, there’s a Zumba community. There is all these different kind of dance communities. There is a runner community. There’s a football community. There’s playing board games in cafes community. There couchsurfing.org. There are workout communities, there are Crossfit communities.

There are many different communities that you can be a part of. And when you are part of it, of course you want to find something you are interested in right, that you’re going to get some benefit out of. Like, I like salsa, you know, I love it. And, you know, I’m a single guy so there’s the benefit there. It’s a worldwide community so anywhere I go in the world, I can go dance and have a good time and meet people. It’s people that are growth-oriented that are into fun that want to expand themselves and there’s a lot in it for me.

So look for something start thinking about a community you could be a part of that could be a lot of fun. Even like a book-reading community. You got these book reading clubs.