Social Anxiety

[Alexander]

How to get rid of social anxiety?

[Reena]

I have had deep social anxiety since childhood. It does not go away completely, at least it didn't for me for so many years. Exposure works. Just going out for walks, saying hi to random strangers or walking around in a store might lessen it to some extent. It has to be managed. If the stress level is too high, I start counting numbers from 1 to 20 to slow down my heart rate. I also took meds for many years, it helped a bit but the medication made me suicidal and weight gain so I to stop taking it. 

I have noticed aerobic exercise like running, jogging tends to reduce it a bit. If you are in public, always keep something handy like a book to read so as to calm down and not feel tensed.

[WhiteOwl]

For me, something that has really turned things upside down, is sitting by myself without distractions, maybe a piece of paper, and imagining the things that trigger your "social anxiety" the most. Look for the bodily reactions and go into the feeling and make it as big as you can, and just continue. I've had some crazy almost exorsismic experiences doing that. Feelings might get very uncomfortable but thats what you want. Feeling them fully they will leave you in the end, the emotions.

 

Works best if you expose yourself to real life at the same time so you remember fresh emotions to work with. 

 

And just remember, there is nothing dangerous or serious happening. Its just your emotional reaction making it seem so. Its a bluff, and so much good stuff waiting for you underneath. 

[Phil]

It’s like ‘the monster in the closet’. The more one’s approach is getting rid of it, the more the illusion is reinforced. 

‘What you resist persists’. 

 

Anything amply inspected vanishes and never was. 

‘What you inspect corrects’.