Written by Darian Rene
Looking back every now and then brings me quite the rush. In present time I find it difficult convincing others that I’m introverted in nature.
There was a time it was easy for that to be understood, lowering my voice and head to anyone I wasn’t comfortable with and actively dodging the platonic intimacies that keep our days bright like eye contact or small conversation.
To be socially anxious is to feel judged before you say or do anything. To walk into conversations as if someone was behind you, inching you toward a three-story cliff. Undesirably, but not because you dislike the individual. On the contrary it’s always been worse with people I would want to have a nice run-in with anyways.
It leaves a sort of fire in you, but not the sort that one might explain as positive. One that makes you sweat and shake and feels more out of your control than in. In the midst of it, it can seem impossible to put this fire out.
Even so, there are ways to deal with this fire but like all big things in life it’s something you have to be able to cut down piece by piece.
- Firstly, truly understanding something is near impossible if you aren’t able to put it in your own words.
It’s imperative before solving a problem that you come to understand it and put it in your own words. Establish an eye-to-eye with the many reasons behind why you face these problems, ask the people who know you questions about yourself. Search for new pieces to the puzzle that is you, relentlessly. Eventually these pieces will come to be a newfound language that you can use for navigation and new connections even.
- Be accountable. Your problems won’t always clear themselves through divine intervention.
I can personally name a number of times I’ve been saved by nothing more, but to rely on that lucky gust in the wind is to prepare for failure. For some things you will have to get dirty, and that’s alright.
There are plenty ways to take things apart but in dealing with something as fragile as the mind and heart it can be best to take it apart in the same way it was built, piece by piece. It’s easy to get lost in the process of things and forget that the tendencies we carry were built, rather than placed there spontaneously. In this sense it’s great to take it at your own special pace. Here a little and there a little. Not to a mind-numbing point that scares you from the job altogether.
Compartmentalize.
To understand the problem, and to know not to deal with the issue in lardy unhealthy chunks puts you far ahead of the bunch.
Not to say looking down at those struggling is an answer but to know you’re first place in a race makes it a lot easier to keep running, no?
In this sense, from then on there should be no reason to stop searching or breaking it down continuously. You’ve already done more than most. Why stop now?
- You have to allow these efforts to translate into habit. Your mindset now won’t be the mindset you carry when you’ve finally transitioned. It can’t.
State of mind is ultimately what shows to be the factor between those who beat their social anxiety dry and those who get beat and conform to it.
Over time, you will have to find time to separate or release yourself from the old emotions that added so much weight to it all in your mind. If you can never detach from the noise of your emotions, it will always be hard to read the room with a clear mind. Consequentially, without a clear mind it cannot be possible to work against something like anxiety.
In nature, we are emotional beings after all. Even so, set time apart to go off logic in whatever ways you can.
Surely there will always be those that aren’t necessarily struck in love with you. Right? But that’s not possible anyway, and you are your biggest proof behind that statement because surely you haven’t been fond of everyone or everything.
But the truth is, if you let your nerves hold you back from being yourself no one can ever like you because they’ve never been allowed that luxury from you in the first place.
This meshes well with what I wrote earlier about getting dirty. Trust me, the possibility of someone not liking you can come off daunting indeed. But over time, there’s a real thrill to it especially when you see someone actually can like you for YOU.
In that light, hold on to your wins as tight as possible.
Every interaction, every small difference. These all count as steps forward and should be treated as such. Make sure to vocalize if even internally that you are proud to make it forward even one step in a world frozen by fears. These thoughts will help mold your mindset slowly into the social version of yourself that’s been waiting so long to light up rooms.
Also acknowledge the bits of social genius that you already have and don’t have to work for. My first real friend is one of the most extroverted energies I’ve ever come across. Always the first to speak or say what they want/how they feel. I knew I was capable of speaking to an array of personalities due to experiencing his own and of course, many others.
A bright outlook isn’t something you can come up with off a whim. It takes time, thought, and creativity. A specific blend of delusion with reality. As extroverted as he was, surely I wouldn’t be able to vibe with EVERYBODY but I more thought about the opportunity than the possible failures. That’s what we progress for. Enjoying newness and quality. Why strive if only to stay alive?
In conclusion, your social anxiety may have won a couple battles against you. Nonetheless with proper understanding, accountability, effort toward habit, and the ability to receive a win, the war is yours.
Just trust this can be true.
Thanks for reading. Like and comment if it resonates.
Liberation Method 
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