Category Archives: Social Anxiety

Remember to Forget for Fun and Happiness

I remember once I was watching my niece in a dance club performance. They were all doing some pre practiced dance moves that was choreographed to a popular musical number. In case they forgot their steps, their was a giant dancing bear on stage to follow for guidance. They were three and four years old, and the dancing bear, or the person dressed in the dancing bear costume, was eleven.

They had these ornamental neck wrap necklace things. I’m sure here is a technical name for it, but since I’m not that into three year old dance fashion, I’m not really sure what it is. It is kind of a long, frilly decorative thing that you loosely wrap around your neck, and it is supposed to enhance your dancing movies by trailing from behind.

What happened was that this girl stepped on her trailing frilly thing, and in the process knocked her stool over. Of course she naturally bent down, picked her stool up, and re wrapped the frilly thing back around her neck so that it wouldn’t happen again. And looked around at her friends, and once or twice at the dancing bear, and she was back in sync again with all the rest of the kids.

And then a thought struck me. She hadn’t yet learned that you are supposed to be nervous on stage. She hadn’t yet learned that you are supposed to be self conscious, and dream up a bazillion terrible things that can happen whenever you are standing up and talking or performing for other people. She hadn’t learned yet that there is many more important things in life than to simply have fun and express yourself. She hadn’t learned that mistakes are cues from nature to feel guilty and embarrassed. She was somehow under the impression that a mistake was something that you just lean over, grab and re arrange and then look around to see how everybody else is doing and then do your own thing.

And then I wondered about how I used to believe in Santa Clause, and now I don’t. And there was a time that I didn’t even know what a Santa Clause was, let alone worry about whether or not he was a concocted fantasy. I didn’t know who he was, then I was told about him and decided to believe in him, and later decided to discard this old belief. I began to wonder how it is possible to do the same thing with stage fright.

There was a time, obviously, when you didn’t know you were supposed to be afraid on stage. Then for some reason, some people learn to be afraid. What happens when you realize that fears are just a concocted myth, like Santa Clause, that you can easily learn to forget so that you can go back to being a kid again?

And that is when you can really start to find the cool stuff in life.

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Make All Things New

Nothing ever new is invented. Or so they say. And they kind of have a point. Harry Potter has been compared to Star Wars, which has been compared to the Wizard of Oz. The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, has been compared to the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. The Ten Commandments, attributed to Moses, are said to be inspired by ancient laws taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

So what’s the point? It’s been said that when you begin to realize you can never really create something completely new unlike anything that has ever existed, it’s kind of comforting. It takes the pressure of. You can easily relax, because you know that building on previous accomplishments can give you a leg up. Many scientists admit they only have gotten where they are by standing on the shoulders of giants that came before them.

And this brings to light an interesting point about human nature. It can be comforting when you realize that all people have similar needs and desires. When you understand that most people really want the same thing underneath, it can make it easy to discover common ground when dealing with others. That is pretty much the basis of all contract negotiation. Discussing what both parties want, and figuring out to satisfy everybody. And in the end, more often than not, you may realize your needs, which you might have thought were far apart, are actually a lot more similar than expected.

On the flip side, of course, is the simple fact that everybody is different. Everybody has their own unique views and experience. You take several people and have them look at an abstract painting, and they all come up with a different interpretation, based on their own history, experience, and emotions. This can make meeting and getting to know new people one of the most wonderful experiences available. The more you expand yourself to seek and experience new ideas, the broader our perspectives grow to encompass things we never dreamed possible.

I was in a strange city once, talking to a friend over the phone. He was giving me directions on how to meet him the next day for lunch. They were fairly complex instructions, involving navigating a strange subway system, going in and out of multiple exits. The fact that all the signs were written in Japanese (a language I didn’t speak at the time) didn’t help. He ended the conversation by saying something surprising. He told me that because there were several subway lines and exits and landmarks to recognize and navigate, it was likely that I’d become lost and confused. He said “And that’s really awesome, because you can realize the opportunity, AND the excuse to talk to and get to know many people along the way.” Before then, I’d never thought that getting lost could be considered an opportunity.

It’s our differences, and out unique perspectives on the same things that everybody shares that gives us such a wonderful opportunity to experience life in new and exciting ways, even if we do the same things and see the same people every day.

How many ways can you find ways to experience something or someone new, today?

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Claim Your Incredible Sexual Power

You see a girl, a cute girl, across the room. Your eyes meet briefly. You think you should go over and do something, but your feet are suddenly glued to the floor. You imagine what you would say, and your heart begins to beat incredibly fast. You think of about eighteen million reasons all of a sudden why you shouldn’t go and talk to her. You are busy. She’s not your type. She probably has a boring personality.

What happens when you begin to become curious about what would happen if those self defeating thoughts didn’t enter into your brain? What would happen if you could discover a way to feel different when you saw a cute girl? Instead of feeling nervous and anxious, what if you could automatically feel incredibly confident and powerful? Sound too far fetched? Read on, because it’s not.

Have you ever discovered something really incredible? Have you ever come across something that was really able to make an incredible impact on your life? For me it was when I learned some specific public speaking skills. Before, I got incredibly nervous when I even thought about standing up in front of people. Even people I knew. But when I learned how to control my anxiety, and even use the natural energy that you produce, I was able to learn how to feel incredibly confident when I was speaking in front of people. How about you? Have you ever discovered a skill or technique that made your life easier?

As you think about that, imagine how good it really feels to discover something new. To take a look at something, and when you see this, you can’t help but to think that this is something that can really help your life. This is something that can help you to become incredibly powerful.  And as you sit there, and continue to read this, I wonder if you can start to imagine how you took this knowledge, and were able to apply this to your life in incredible ways so you naturally became more successful. How many examples can you think of, in your own past?

One thing that separates children from adults is the ability to make a decision. To see something you like, and instead of waiting for permission, instead of waiting for somebody to tell you that it will be ok, you just make a decision and go after what you want. Imagine you’re at the grocery store. You want to buy something. You check your pockets to make sure that you have enough money. You think about what it is that you want to buy. You look around, and see it. That’s it. You decide then and there, that’s it. No hesitation. No wondering if it’s the right thing. No worrying about what people will think if you go over and grab whatever it was that you were just thinking of.

How would you like to feel that way when you walked into a bar, or a party? You look around, choose the girl you like, and make a decision right then, and right here. The same process. The same process that you used to buy something in the supermarket, without hesitation, you use then to choose what girl you want to talk to. You don’t worry about what people think, or what she’ll say, or what goofy line you want to use. You just look around, see something that you like, make your choice, and let the chips fall where they may. How would that be? Would you like that? What would life be like if you could do that all the time? Do you think that would make you more attractive to cute girls? You bet it would.

One product that I’ve used over and over, as it is filled with useful techniques to get you to that mindset, is the Alpha Male System. And because the Alpha Male System is so full of useful techniques, I’ve read it at least a dozen times, if not more. And not only will it give you exactly the right things to do and say, but it gives you incredibly powerful techniques to work on your ‘inner game’ as well, so doing and saying the right things become incredibly easy. Pickup experts and gurus alike agree that this is one of the finest products out there to improve your life in this area.

I’m not going to tell you to go and buy this now, because you are smart enough to make your own decision to buy. And you don’t have to buy it now, you can go have a look now and decide to buy it later if it’s more convenient. The important thing is to realize that as you continuously develop your skills with whatever materials you can get your hands on, you can’t help but to become the person you’ve always wanted to be. And the Alpha Male System is an easily affordable and natural step in the right direction.

You can have a look by clicking here.

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Instantly Kill Social Anxiety And Let Your Brilliance Shine

And our next speaker will be telling us the exciting news about [insert your specialty here], please show a warm welcome for [YOU]!

You stride up to the podium, completely calm, right? Not a worry at all, right? No probably don’t even need note cards, since when you speak in front of a large crowd you feel the same as though you are speaking to an old friend over a couple of beers, right?

How about this. You are meeting a friend for a drink, you think it’s going to be just the two of you. You show up, and there are about six people that you don’t know. You slowly walk up to the table, and your buddy says “Hey! He’s here! I’ve been telling these guys all about you!” They all beam looks of expectation you’d normally see just before the curtain opens at Cirque du Soleil. Of course, since you are completely at ease and outgoing without need for any preparation going into any social situation, you can handle this situation flawlessly, right?

Or how about this. You see a fantastically attractive member of the opposite sex standing across the room. You flirt with your eyes a few times, and you’re pretty sure you see a brief flash of something that could be a smile. Of course, being the socially at ease person you are, you naturally stroll over, confident that your social and conversation skills are sufficient to easily decide within a few minutes of conversation whether this person is a match for you or not. Right?

Well, if you fall a bit short in the above situations, please raise your hand and join the human race. Social anxiety is one of the biggest obstacles known to mankind. People consistently rank the fear of public speaking higher even than dying. There’s a reason at high school dances boys stand on one side of the gym, and girls on the other. 

Luckily, I have a couple tricks that can help you easily overcome this. One is a realization that you probably already know, and the other is some mental practice that you can do that will consistently give you an edge as you practice it.

First the realization. What are you thinking of in these situations? If you can, imagine now that you are in one of the above situations, and pay attention to your thoughts. What are you thinking of? Your faults? Your weaknesses? The worst thing that can happen (or more accurately about a billion worst things that can happen?) Well guess what, whenever you are in a social situation, everybody thinks those thoughts. People don’t have near enough brain energy to focus on their own worst fears AND be cognizant of what you might be afraid of at the time.

Of course, this is easy to forget when you are hit with the unexpected adrenalin shot of social pressure, but the more you practice remembering, the easier it will get.

This realization really sunk in for me when I was taking a public speaking class. During one of the speeches, I was the first to go. I don’t what it was, maybe because I was talking about a subject that I was really familiar with, or the teacher was really nice, I’m not sure. But I was really relaxed. And during the middle my speech, I paused and actually scanned the room and noticed the expressions on everybody’s faces. They were all terrified. They were all thinking “oh no i’m next!” I probably could have been speaking Portuguese, and they wouldn’t have noticed.

Many times people will pretend they are not nervous, but trust me, they are doing their best to keep their game face while they think “oh no oh no what do I say???”

The trick I spoke of earlier is to focus outward as much as possible whenever you are in those situations that can make you feel less than comfortable. The idea is to stay out of your head as much as possible. Focus on their eyes, their nose, how their lips move when they talk, their boobs (ok, maybe not the boobs,) their ears, earrings, mustache, haircut. Try to figure out from their breath what they ate last, the sounds in the room, their posture, how many different colors they are wearing. Anything to keep the focus OUT side your head.

Of course, they key is to remember these two tricks when you get into those situations. If you know you are going to be in a situation, like a speech or a first or second date, no problem. Just make sure to rehearse doing this in your mind beforehand.

If you find yourself in a situation where you are suddenly on the spot unexpected, it’s good to set up a signal system to help you remember the two keys:

They are just as afraid as you.

Focus on physical things to reduce your own fear.

One thing you might do is use the pegging technique, and attach one to each thumb. Of course, like any new mind technique, it will take some practice. Another way to do this is to purposely go into situations that make you feel a little anxious and then just practice these techniques until you become natural.

While you might not become incredibly charismatic overnight, the more you practice these techniques, the easier it will be for you to be at ease in all situations, so you can feel relaxed enough to share your true self with the world. You owe the rest of us that much.

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