Transcribed from my video at www.youtube.com/askvictoria

I get many questions about social anxiety. It can be quite crippling. Here are some clear and effective tools to cope with this syndrome.

Take notes because this works if you work it!

Today I want to talk about something I’m getting a lot of letters about: social anxiety. A lot of people seem to suffer from it, and it can be paralyzing and crippling for many, at many levels, from shyness to deciding not to take a job or promotions for fear of talking publicly, not going out with friends, not doing family parties, not enjoying life: isolating, and life becomes smaller and smaller. And it’s quite tragic, because there are strategies to handle this. But the roots of social anxiety are in the family of origin, from lack of support, or in the school system, there’s bullying, acne, teasing, or sometimes it’s just a chemical imbalance that causes cognitive distortions, so they’re perceiving life differently than it is. So let’s look at some key tools and strategies, and I encourage you to use them.

(1:30) The first thing is, your brain is in fight or flight, and it perceives danger where there is no danger. The biochemistry is flowing in your system as if there were danger. In order to reverse that, something very simple: slow your breath down. When you’re in a danger situation, your breath is shallow and fast, so you need to signal to the brain, “I am not in a danger situation,” and you need to reverse the perception, for instance with a deep breath in. Hold for a count of four, then slowly breath out. And you can do it through the nose, then mouth, but I like nose only. It’s really powerful just to slow your breath down. Do 10-15 of those.

(2:40) Secondly, an important strategy is to relax your muscles. There’s a simple yogic way to do it: you tense a muscle, your arm for instance, tense, tense, tense, then relax. Then your other arm, each leg, then your whole body, and relax after each. This gets the body into a biochemical experience of releasing and relaxing. And you want to work with these two important tools of breathing and relaxing.

(3:23) Number three: the cognitive. You need to identify the beliefs that are going on within you. You may be saying, “I’m going to say something stupid, so I may as well not go out,” or, “I’m going to drop something and look like a fool,” or, “I’m going to fall and peoploe are going to make fun of me.” You need to identify the beliefs that exist and are coarsing through your brain, and the neural pathways, which are your beliefs, that are reinforcing the social anxiety. Write them all down. “I am afraid of being made fun of. I feel afraid of looking stupid.” Whatever they are. Write all of your feelings and thoughts down, and start to keep a journal of when they occur. “I go to the grocery store, and I feel this way, and this is the date. I go to the class, and this is what I feel, and the date.” Just get a log going so you can start to identify specifically when the social anxiety is occurring. Again, if you don’t focus on what is wrong, you’re never going to resolve it. So focus on it, and start to analyze when is it that your social anxiety shows up. And more importantly, what are the beliefs that are associated with that anxiety? Then I want you to go about a system of tracking these beliefs, and catching them as they are there, and speak with yourself rationally, as though you had a therapist dialoguing with you, and you need to ask yourself logically, “Am I 100% sure that I will be made fun of?” And clearly your answer needs to be no, because you’re not 100% sure of just about anything. You’re not sure that anyone is going to respond to you in any way. So you need to dialogue with yourself, take yourself through a process of understanding, “Is this realistic? Is this really going on? Is this something I’m really 100% certain of? Is my fear justified?” And write about that. Start to catch yourself, repeatedly, and rationally converse with yourself, in the moment you’re feeling whatever you’re feeling. The experience is that if you track and see what you’re feeling, rather than just making it a huge monster, you’re going to find that looking at it truly is going to make it a little less scary, and every time you do it, the fear will come down and down. So getting realistic thinking is very powerful, and reverses social anxiety.

(6:04) The fourth tool: little by little, test yourself. Push the limits a little bit. While you’re doing that, you’re breathing deeply, and you’re working with your muscles, so you’re now coupling the situation that was once very scary to you, with a relaxation response, that is biochemically sending messages like, “There is no sabre-toothed tiger,” or, “There is no scary situation that is going to attack me.” So you need to work with yourself very patiently. I would also love to recommend fish oil: large doses of essential fatty acids, 2000-4000 mg, to help the brain calm. Also, Bach remedies has a wonderful remedy called “Rescue Remedy.” I recommend that you get a little spray bottle, and put a couple spray under your tongue when you’re going out. It’s got a variety of flower essences to bring the energy of anxiety down. Also, check out my Emotional Freedom Technique video, which really helps to neutralize difficult emotions. I’m hoping that this will assist you, because all you have to do with social anxiety is focus, pay attention, and work to analyze, undo, cancel and correct those automatic responses that are not realistic.

Victoria Lorient-Faibish MEd, CCC, RPP, RPE
Holistic Psychotherapist
Masters in Educational Psychology
Canadian Certified Counsellor
Registered Polarity Practitioner
Registered Polarity Educator
Reiki Master
New Decision Therapy