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The ‘What if… So What!’ Technique

 

SUMMARY

In this video…

Sebastiaan introduces the “What If… So What?” technique. This is extremely helpful when dealing with negative thoughts and anxiety.

This technique involves questioning the significance of potential negative outcomes and approaching them with a “so what?” attitude.

This technique:
– reduces the intensity of Social Anxiety
– make you suffer less
– has anxiety leave faster when it gets triggered

This technique will not solve your Social Anxiety. However, it will help you achieve acceptance. And acceptance is one of the 3 keys to Social Ease.

He explains the importance of acceptance and being okay with whatever might happen. You can achieve a state of freedom and stop being controlled by previously feared situations by gradually accepting and letting go of your fears.

Sebastiaan also elaborated on how his mentors and the study of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) greatly influenced his teachings on acceptance.

To learn more, check out our FREE Mini course:

“The 7 Secrets to Social Confidence”



FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Are you ever bothered by your thoughts?
What if this is going to go wrong?
What if I say this awkward thing and get embarrassed?
What if I run into this person that I kind of know but don’t really know?
How’s it going to go?
What if he is going to say this?
What if…

Blah blah blah this ‘what if’ thinking.

Well, I’m going to share a very simple technique with you in this video that’s going to give you a strategy to use when that is happening.

The technique is called the “What If… So What!” technique. Ever heard of it? Probably not, because I just made it up a bunch of days ago.

A bunch of days ago, I was in a Zoom group coaching session. I explained the particular outcome that you’re after when it comes to social ease. One of those parts is being okay with whatever happens, and saying yes to whatever might happen.

For example,

I might be rejected. Am I okay with that? If not, why not? Now, you’ve got tapping targets.
Are you okay with being rejected? No, that hurts me. That hurt happens on the inside of you.

It’s not a rejection. It’s actually the feelings that get triggered inside. You have control over what you do with these feelings, so you can address them. As you address that, eventually you will get to the point where you will say “I get rejected, so what?” or “I get criticized, so what?”.

That’s where you’ll end up, where you’re no longer hooked by the things you used to be afraid of. That is where you have freedom. That is the magic of combining the best of traditional psychology with energy psychology, of which I talk the most about tapping.

So, I taught that [What If… So What] technique, or it wasn’t really a technique. I just talked about the particular mindset or state of being that eventually leads to acceptance. The whole group coaching session was circled around acceptance – acceptance of anxiety, acceptance of yourself, acceptance of whatever might happen.

A couple of days later, in our WhatsApp group, which is part of our Social Confidence Club, I saw the following comment,

“Seb, who was it you were talking about that said ‘so what’ when it came to anxiety or possible outcomes? I’ve been using that in my head the last few days in social situations and it’s working for me. It helps too when thinking about work stuff that is stressing me out. I still want to succeed and get the job done, but I also think ‘so what’?”

A bunch of people like that, and I thought that it was something quite helpful that I could easily share with you.

The answer to his question comes from a mindset of acceptance. This acceptance mindset was first taught to me when I began learning about EFT.

Then, it really got hammered in by my coach, Julia. She is a very wise lady, whom I started working with 13-14 years ago. It got reinforced more and more by my mentors, Dr. David Lake and Steve Wells, who are psychologists and tapping experts.

They talk a lot about acceptance and self-acceptance in particular. That really influenced my thinking.

Steve Wells and David Lake had a mentor. His name is Frank Farrelly, and he’s the founder of Provocative Therapy.

NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) and a lot of the core techniques were modeled after four of the top psychotherapists at the time:

  1. Virginia Satir
  2. Fritz Perls
  3. Milton Erickson
  4. Frank Farrelly

Frank Farrelly was their mentor. He created Provocative Therapy, which I studied a little bit under the guidance of Steve and David. They added an energy component to it and created PET (Provocative Energy Therapy), which I’ve used for a ton of workshops and supervision.


The fundamental attitude David discussed is, “So what? What’s the problem?” This is the perspective you adopt as a therapist, which is that everything is fine. That was essentially my explanation, and that’s where the “So What” comes from.

David also taught me about Nisargadatta. He’s a spiritual teacher. His idea of enlightenment is ‘when nothing is wrong anymore’.

When I had sessions with David, that was the ultimate outcome that you’re after, when nothing is wrong anymore.

So, when you’re thinking,

“What if I’m going to get rejected?”
“What if that’s not wrong?”
“What if that’s something that can happen?”
“What if that’s okay?”
“What if you’re just okay with that?”
“I might get rejected.”

So what?

Of course, when it comes to rejection, you have no idea why that person is rejecting you. That person might be having a horrible day. It might be that time of the month (sorry, ladies). There may be something going on in this person’s life that you are unaware of. You may remind that person of someone who has nothing to do with you, and so on.

Basically, what you want to get to is “so what”. You can use that in your mind as a mantra.

When we were having a session, we were tapping. That lesson probably went much deeper than just using logic. However, even if you only use logic, it’s a great strategy to use when your thinking is bothering you.

What if this… so what?
What if that… so what?

There you go. I hope that helped you. This is Sebastiaan from social-anxiety-solutions.com.

If you want to learn how to actually get to the ultimate outcome that I’ve been talking about, where you’re in a genuine feeling place, saying

“so what” to rejection
“so what” to embarrassing yourself
“so what” to whatever, anything and everything
being calm and at ease in social situations,

get my free mini course: “The 7 Secrets to Social Confidence”.

That’s the best. I’ve been teaching solutions to Social Anxiety since 2008. I’ve been making videos since 2009. I’ve been interviewing a whole bunch of people on my podcast, which now has 500 episodes plus (only 50 interviews, but that’s a different story).

Everything I’ve studied, including the 6000 hours of coaching I’ve done with socially anxious clients and overcoming my own Social Anxiety, I’ve condensed into seven concise secrets that you can learn quickly.

There’s guided tapping in there, and there are a couple of really short snippets of the most important parts of all the interviews that I’ve done. It is really the best of the best that you can get.

By the end of this mini course, it sets you up to understand,

“This is what I’m dealing with. This is why I’m dealing with it. This is how I can actually overcome it. I’m not a victim. I don’t have to be dealing with this for the rest of my life. There’s a reason why I’ve been dealing with this and other things that didn’t work. This actually can work for me.”

You’ll also be guided through some tapping, and you’ll notice some shifts and changes. You already have some evidence that things are changing. Very, very powerful.

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

Bye for now.


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