How to be socially Free?

[EmJay]

How to stop caring what others think of me?

How to stop living up to people's expectations?

How to stop being super shy because of fear of rejection?

How to stop the need of validation from everyone, specially close people?

How to stop fearing being embarrassed?

etc.

 

I believe all the questions above are of the same problem.

I am Always anxious while around people. It feels really uncomfortable remembering an embarrassing situation, even a mild one. I avoid talking to strangers as much as I can, this includes my teachers. and I'm probably in university only because that's whats expected from me.

I've been a people pleaser since as long as I can remember, and I don't know how to go about changing that. 

Maybe its childhood trauma, that I didn't get the unconditional love I needed, or the fact that my older siblings bullied me as a kid.

I've watched Leo's 'How to stop what others think of you' years ago, more than once, but it didn't really help me. I remember in the video he talked about how it's bad for you to live as a people pleaser, I really know that it is, but knowing isn't enough. I also push myself here and there but I guess I am not pushing enough.

 

I am aware of the urge to not post this, telling myself that I can find my way without involving people, forgetting that its originally the point.

Edited July 15, 2021 by EmJay

[flowboy]

1 hour ago, EmJay said:

Maybe its childhood trauma, that I didn't get the unconditional love I needed, or the fact that my older siblings bullied me as a kid.

It is definitely that, and trying to think differently about things won't help be enough in my experience.

Primal therapy is what transformed it for me.

These early experienced were not properly processed, so they are influencing your adult life. I needed to go back and process them properly, so I could be free from them.

It helped a lot, the issues you named were transformed from the inside.

I would say I have 70% less social anxiety since I did that.

[Byun Sean]

I had the same hangups.

I worked in retail for 8 months. I'm still working that job. It grew me socially like nothing else.

It's only one way so this is for sure not the only way but just to give you a possible idea to work with.

When your working retail you don't have time or resources to worry about what others think of you. You can't runaway from a social situation because its part of your job to help the people. You just do whatever is needed at any given moment. 

 

I went from being afraid of saying hi to a stranger to having weird and interesting conversations with people right off the bat effortlessly. 

It took a lot of work though. 

There was a lot of resistance. (I still have resistance I'm working through). Fear of judgement. Fear of suffering. Fear of not gaining approval. Etc. 

These all have to be felt and worked through experientially over and over and over again. You have to keep putting yourself in situations

that push you to the limits of your social comfort zone until you just don't care what others think anymore and the uncomfortable becomes

the comfortable. 

 

Then you can relax and be playful and you won't care at all or have any shyness anymore. Again this stuff takes work. Don't expect this kind of 

growth to come easy. Expect to run into failure, after failure, after embarrassing situation, after suffering, after failure, while you are growing yourself.

 

Whether or not you choose to work in retail. If you want to grow this part of yourself, imo, 

the big picture is you need to get over your fear of feeling negative emotions. If you examine your fears that have to do with

socialization they have deep unforgiving suffering attached to them that has you by the nuts and will continue to until

you push the limits of your comfort zone so much that you heal yourself of your fears and your social anxiety and shyness

evaporates.

 

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by Byun Sean

[WelcometoReality]

On 2021-07-15 at 6:14 AM, EmJay said:

How to stop caring what others think of me?

How to stop living up to people's expectations?

How to stop being super shy because of fear of rejection?

How to stop the need of validation from everyone, specially close people?

How to stop fearing being embarrassed?

etc.

You meet the feelings of fear and embarrasment even though they are uncomfortable. As you said even thinking of those times where you felt embarrassed is enough to get these feelings to come up. 

So while safely and secure in your home you can think of those moments and let those feelings come up without trying to push them away. 

As you start doing this they might feel intense but as you continue this practice they will lessen in intensity and eventually disappear.

[eliasvelez]

On 15.7.2021 at 7:51 AM, flowboy said:

Primal therapy

@flowboy sounds like an interesting approach to heal trauma and do shadow work. did you do it yourself with a book? and when yes, whitch one? 

Edited July 16, 2021 by eliasvelez

[LastThursday]

It's all about where you put your focus and attention.

All your attention should be on them 100%, not yourself - your body will take care of itself, learn to trust it. What stifles good social interaction is constantly being distracted by being in your head.

You can practise whenever you're by yourself, by just noticing what's around you, you can even call out the names of the things you're seeing and hearing or feeling. For example: TV, mobile, table, dub techno, piano stool, relaxed etc. Start off doing this for a small amount of time, then extend over time. If you can get up to ten minutes without distraction, then this will help a great deal.

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by LastThursday

[flowboy]

53 minutes ago, eliasvelez said:

@flowboy sounds like an interesting approach to heal trauma and do shadow work. did you do it yourself with a book? and when yes, whitch one? 

I went to the retreat by pujalepp.com and had very good results. A close friend of mine had very good results with livingtruthnow.com . Both of these are websites of the specific therapists. I can highly recommend doing it in that setting, because you get a powerful shift in only 7 days.

But perhaps there's other forms that I haven't explored.

[TDW1995]

Social confidence is something I have struggled with for years. I have given up several times, but over the past month I've finally decided I need to really overcome this. I can see how this holds me back in my career, friendships, and romantic relationships.

Just recently, I've identified some really important insights on what is holding me back on the journey to social confidence. Firstly, I've noticed that I am trying to control and manipulate people's reactions. Doing this requires our minds to "figure out" the perfect thing to say which will create a positive response from the other person. For example, before I say something to my boss, I want to know FOR SURE that he/she is going to respond to me in a positive manner. If my boss reacts negatively, then we automatically think we did something wrong and we are not worthy just as we are. Much of our social anxiety results from absolutely needing positive feedback all of the time, in every situation. For as long as we try to get people to say something we want, we will be stuck. We must give the other individual complete autonomy and freedom to react as they choose. And, no matter how they react (positively or negatively), we must realize our self-worth is not changed in any way whatsoever.

Lastly, I found that I've been gauging my progress of overcoming social anxiety by how I am feeling emotionally prior to, during, and after social situations. If I feel nervous before, during, or after a situation, well, that must mean I'm not making any progress towards overcoming social fear. However, if we look deeply into emotions, we can see that this is the body's conditioned response to a situation that may feel threatening. For years we have trained ourselves to avoid situations that may trigger a "negative" emotion. Instead, we should measure our progress on doing what scares us despite the emotions involved. We must fully feel the emotion of fear, anxiety, etc. You can even go so far as to loving the feeling of fear because you know on a deep level this is helping you. I know this is easier said than done, but if we judge fear and anxiety as negative and something we should avoid entirely, then we don't have a chance to improve our social lives. After all, what's so bad about fear, anxiety, etc.? Is there any emotion out there that's really "bad?" An emotion may be an intense, energetic feeling in the body, but what's so wrong with that?

[eliasvelez]

1 hour ago, flowboy said:

I went to the retreat by pujalepp.com and had very good results. A close friend of mine had very good results with livingtruthnow.com . Both of these are websites of the specific therapists. I can highly recommend doing it in that setting, because you get a powerful shift in only 7 days.

But perhaps there's other forms that I haven't explored.

okay thanks!

[ZzzleepingBear]

OP, take a look at this. It will be well worth your time I think.

 

[EmJay]

I wanna thank everyone who replied to this topic.

I can see the great potential in all these different but ultimately same approaches.

[Logan]

Study psychology, human nature, social skills, Self-Love, detachment.

Become passionate about life and express yourself even if you think others won’t like it. (If they don’t, then you don’t want them in you life anyway, right?)

Apply requisite variety to all your problems in life.