Tweet

Healing Social Phobia

Written by: Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Article Overview: Do you suffer from social phobia? You don't need to stay isolated or go your whole life suffering from this debilitating anxiety. There is a way to heal!

Healing Social Phobia

What is Social Phobia?

Social phobia - or social anxiety - is the fear of interacting with others in various situations: groups, work, school, parties, on the telephone, in a market or store, and so on. People with social phobia experience extreme anxiety or panic when they know that they have to talk or interact with others. They often find themselves isolating rather than risk the rejection or ridicule that they fear.

People with social phobia may be saying things to themselves such as:

• What if I make a fool of myself?
• What if I can't think of anything to say?
• What if I say something stupid?
• What if people think I'm weird?
• What if no one wants to talk with me?
• What if everyone can see how nervous I am?
• What if I blush?

Social phobia comes from an extreme fear of being judged and rejected by others. The fear may turn to panic when in the presence of an authority figure.

What Causes Social Phobia?

Imagine that you have a small child whom you are taking to a birthday party of peers. Imagine that you tell the child before the party, "You must make sure that you do everything right so that the people at the party like you, because if they don't like you, then you are unlovable and worthless." Do you think this would cause the child to be very anxious?

You would probably never say this to an actual child, yet this is what you are saying to yourself - to the child within you, which is your feeling self. You are telling yourself that your worth is determined by others liking you or rejecting you: if they like you, you are okay, and if they don't, you are worthless.

This is self-abandonment, and is the root cause of social phobia.

Self-Abandonment

You are abandoning yourself when you refuse to define your own worth and lovability and instead make others responsible for your sense of worth. You are abandoning yourself when you refuse to take responsibility for your own feelings and instead make others responsible for your feelings of anxiety or safety. Once you make others responsible - especially authority figures whose acceptance you desperately want - there is no way you will not be anxious when with them.

Once you hand away to others the responsibility for making you feel okay, then you have to try to control how they feel about you by doing everything "right." Trying to control how others feel about you always causes anxiety. Your anxiety is letting you know that you have abandoned yourself and that you are trying to do something you cannot do - which is to control whether or not others accept you or reject you.

When you are not giving to yourself the acceptance, approval, and attention you need to feel lovable and worthy, then you will invariably try to get approval, acceptance and attention from others, which creates much anxiety.

Healing Social Phobia

Healing social phobia is about learning to love yourself - to accept and value yourself and to take responsibility for your own feelings. People who love themselves go into social situations to share their caring with others. When you feel good about yourself, you want to offer your smile, your interest, your attention, and your caring to others. You are far more concerned with what you want go GIVE to others than with what you want to GET or what you want to AVOID.

If you want to heal your social phobia, then you need to do the Inner Bonding work necessary to stop judging yourself and start loving yourself.

Related Articles
  Welcome to L.A.
  Success Phobia - Do You Have It? 5 Easy Ways To Tell
  ICT Peace Initiative
  Overcoming Phone Phobia When Working From Home
  The Sales Phobia That Kills Bottom Line

Article Tags: abandonment, birthday party, blush, br, extreme anxiety, extreme fear, fool, groups work, interacting with others, li li, peers, presence, rejection, ridicule, risk, root cause, saying things, school parties, social anxiety, social phobia



Related Forum Posts
Re: Marketing 2.0 - What Are Your Thoughts - Hi Shri, Thanks for posting this. I also read it and I believe Social Media is here to stay, until the next best thing comes up. Social media proved to be useful for me many times and I think everyone should use it for their business.
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff
Re: How can a social networking site make serious money? - Hi There, It is quite interesting, that some Social Networking do produce an income. I think testimonials are always a benefit to share. See one below: This Social Network has changed my life! Every night is a Friday night and everyday is a Saturday!! Because of it, I have been able to leave the workforce 10 years early.It has given me back my life. Many of us would like to retire early. I am sure there are many more. The point is of focusing with great determination. The ongoing challenge is to stay focussed and not be sidetracked into a newer scheme or so. Also I have read, during this financial turmoil, more people turn to Social Networking for various reasons.
Re: Is being too connected pushing your business forward or back - My email rule: Don't answer email until evening. My Social networking Rule: Don't go to Social site until I have finished other assignment. Mr forum rule: Post or start a new thread early in the morning and don't spend more than 30 minutes, then comeback in the evening to post more.
Re: Tactics for Blog Traffic - some more tips to drive traffic to blog or to promote a blog. Squidoo Lens Creation Hub Pages Creation Social Bookmarking (Digg, Delicious, Stumble, Reddit etc.) Be helpful in forums Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn etc.) syndication blog commenting (other blogs) Guest post


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

The Future of Online Marketing

Is the iPad useful? One CEO tells all ....

The Value of Small Businesses

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.