What is Social Anxiety?

 

It is more than just shyness, social anxiety is also known as social phobia or social anxiety disorder. It involves a combination of excessive self-consciousness and a fear of public scrutiny or humiliation in common social situations. In social situations, the person fears being rejected or negatively evaluated or fears offending others. You might worry about these social situations because you fear that others will judge you negatively. Or maybe you fear that you'll offend others by something you say or do. You may also worry about others noticing that you are anxious.

​

  How does it affect a person’s life?

 

If you have social anxiety, you will feel a sense of intense fear in social situations. You will often try to avoid them. You might worry about a social event before, during and after it has happened.

Many people find social situations difficult, or feel shy or awkward at certain times – this is completely normal.

Social anxiety however, can completely overwhelm you, and you may find yourself completely avoiding social situations and become rather introverted as a result. It can also wreak havoc with personal relationships and being with someone that can truly make you happy.

You might find it very difficult to engage in everyday activities such as:

 

• Talking in groups/engaging in discussions

• Starting conversations/answering questions

• Public speaking

• Answering the phone

• Meeting new people

• Being in the presence of authority figures

• Eating and drinking in front of others

• Working with others 

 

Social anxiety can hugely affect your everyday life. It might:

 

• affect your self-confidence and self-esteem

• make you feel extremely isolated

• make it very difficult to develop and maintain relationships

• interfere with your ability to work, or do everyday tasks like shopping.

​

 

 

 

  What causes it?

 

The root cause of social anxiety is fear - fear of being judged by others; fear of embarrassment; fear of not fitting in or being “different”; fear of appearing foolish; fear of being rejected, etc…

 

The likelihood is that you don’t really remember when it began, and that it just seemed to happen, but you probably do remember a situation where you were criticised, humiliated, embarrassed or belittled?  

This initiated an idea that you were not good enough, or stupid, or that there was something wrong with you! 

From here on this idea is built upon every time you perceive you are being subjected to the same scrutiny until it becomes a firm belief. So you now firmly believe that you are different, and don’t fit in, that there must be something wrong with you?

Therefore you are afraid of looking bad in front of others, afraid of being judged for your appearance and for who you are, afraid to stand up for yourself…and afraid of social situations.

However, the reality is that, although you felt intense scrutiny and judgement in a negative way which created the feelings and emotions you experienced at the time, much of the time the negative judgement is your perception - your imagination based on your belief. You have developed a fear-based belief system and this negative mindset has manifested itself into social anxiety.

 

 

  How can I help you?

 

If you start believing that social anxiety is something that you need to be afraid of, it will perpetuate your fear.

However, if you believe that you are capable of overcoming this condition, you can embrace who you really are and heal yourself from these limiting beliefs instead. 

It’s not about changing yourself for others - it’s about changing who you belief you are, and how you think you are seen by others. 

It is also about learning to love and accept yourself, to ease off the self-criticism, and to build up your self-esteem and confidence.

Understanding the root cause and recognising your fears is the first step to treating social anxiety, and I have many techniques that can help with this. 

Together we can discuss what impact social anxiety is having on your life and build a treatment process which will confront and diminish these fears.

I can help you to change your fear-based belief system by replacing your negative mindset with new positive, empowering ways to think and feel, strengthen your self-esteem, and help you to finally realise your true worth.