How to deal with social anxiety
Fear of presenting a work, fear of public speaking, fear of speaking to an authority figure… They are all social fears. So, when in excess, when you have a loss and significant suffering from it, we call it Social Anxiety Disorder. Although it can be a mental disorder, at minor levels and without such severe damage, many people have some level of social anxiety.
This excessive anxiety can be a result of childhood trauma, handling by your parents when you were a child (such as excessive criticism); being bullied at school, being really shy…
For the fear of public speaking to decrease, you must change the way you see the situation. It’s probably increased by cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are irrational thinking biases, which people often do. An example of cognitive distortion is thinking that if you gave a bad presentation at work, you will be fired, this cognitive distortion is called catastrophizing. People with social anxiety focus excessive attention on what the other person will be thinking of them and how they are appearing.
To change, it is necessary to transform the mindset, to see the situation in another way. Understand the cognitive distortions you may be doing it and look for more realistic thinking. Another factor that helps is for people to understand that what they should do must often be done not for their own benefit, but to help others, for example: the presentation of the work will be done so that people will understand about a certain subject. Reframing helps to disconnect from being stuck in your ego and can bring a sense of connection and purpose, making the person connect with their inner sage and activating their courage.
Another essential point is that to change social anxiety, exposure is necessary. In cognitive behavioral therapy, this tool is called systematic desensitization, which occurs when the person exposes herself to what he fears. First, a list is made of what they fear most and the person is exposed to what they “fear least” first and so on. This increases the person’s sense of security and he or she begins to realize that the excessive fear came much more from distortions than from reality and from what he feared so much does not happen. The situation is always easier in reality than in the mind of a very anxious person.
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