How to Deal with Social Anxiety

A few months ago I decided to step outside of my comfort zone and invite my work friends and my best friend out for a weekend lunch. As someone that used to have crippling social anxiety this was a big step for me.

What is Social Anxiety?

Social Anxiety can make you feel like interacting with people is this intricate puzzle that you can never solve and results in your own embarrassment. It's this longing to be the person that can glide from conversation to conversation, but never having the right thing to say. As the anxiety builds you feel like every action you take makes you look, and therefore feel, awkward. It's a pretty isolating cycle.

The Mayo Clinic details the symptoms of social anxiety as: excessive fear of situations in which one may be judged, worry about embarrassment or humiliation or concern about offending someone.

The Healing Power of Connection

You'll hear me say this a lot on this blog, but the way I dealt with my anxieties was to face them head on. Building up trust with people is something I, and most children of abusive parents, struggle with. This lack of trust results in me second guessing peoples intentions and responses. You can't be fully present in a conversation if you're also deeply analysing the person you're conversing with.

Once I addressed my hang ups I decided to reach out. I've been doing this over time with family, old friends, new friends and now work friends. Work friends always felt like the final frontier because as a teen and a person in my early 20s I felt like I struggled to connect to my work peers. They always seemed so much more assure of themselves and I couldn't keep up.

The more people I am able to connect to, the more comfortable I feel with myself. The more real friendships I make the more I believe that I'm worthy of other peoples time and affection. At the end of the day that's where my anxiety stems from: this belief that I am not enough.

I want to make a big side note here that some people are just plain rude and are judging you. If someone is actively trying to make fun of you or make you feel uncomfortable then remember that it has nothing to do with you. You could be a champion conversationalist that's living your best life and you would still walk away from a conversation with them feeling like a fool. Don't give your energy to these toxic people.

Do you suffer from social anxiety? Leave me a comment below or connect with me on Instgram @breathe.syd .

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