Why Social Anxiety Rates Will Increase And What You Can Do About It.
Think about the people you feel most nervous around.
Where does that quiet, shy feeling turn up the most often. It's not when
you're hanging out with your best friend, is it? It may still show up
with your family if you have not lived with them for a while, but if you
are currently living with them it is probably lowest with them. Why is
that? The answer is obvious to you as a person who has suffered from
social anxiety and excessive shyness for many years. It is because you
are used to them and you are not making a first impression on them, so
you do not worry about the possibility of being rejected, making a fool
of yourself, doing something embarrassing, or any of the other triggers
that are associated with interactions with other people.
Now let's go back to the question posed in the title of this article.
Why is social anxiety likely to keep increasing in the general
population in the United States? As a clinical psychologist specializing
in the treatment of social anxiety disorder, I can tell you that there
is a high likelihood that the social anxiety disorder rates will
continue to increase as long as our society continues to be highly
mobile, with ever increasing community sizes. The number of people who
live in cities continues to increase relative to the number of people
who live in small towns or rural communities. When we live in large
communities, we have a sense of anonymity compaired to those who live in
small communities.
For example, if you know the grocery store clerk by name because she
goes to your church, and you recognize the police officer that you pass
on your way to the gym that is owned by your uncle, you have a sense of
security that comes from strong community ties. Most people
significantly underestimate the importance of this kind of security
because your experience it primarily at an unconscious level. However,
the impact of this sense of belonging and ownership of your community is
huge when it comes to the level of anxiety that you experience. While
this form of security is like a buffer against all forms of anxiety, it
is particularly powerful for social anxiety.
So what can you do about it besides moving to Mayburry (Andy Griffith's
home town)? Since you can't very easily control the circumstances of
your community size, you will have to focus on the mental side. In every
situation that you experience, there is the reality that offers the
information to be processed, and then there is the way you think about
that reality, the way you process it and frame it in your mind. Fans of
the pop-psychology methods called NLP (neurolinguistic programming) like
to explain this concept by saying, "the map is not the territory." What
they mean by this is that the map is one entity which is completely
separate from the actual territory that it represents. Translate that to
its deeper meaning by saying your actual experiences and actual life
experiences are separated from the map you have of those experiences
(the mental representations and reframing that you do in your thoughts).
The point of this saying about the map not being the same as the
territory is to inspire people to take control of their thoughts and
perspectives on reality and realize that they have a great deal of
wiggle room for changing their perceptions of whatever life experience
they are going through. If this concept had no merit, then there would
be no point in having the field of psychology. Everyone would experience
the world exactly as it is with no deviation. There would be no
misperception of reality. There would be no ability to reframe a
hardship by thinking of it as something that will make you stronger.
There would be no such thing as the saying, "You've got to make lemonade
when life gives you lemons."
So how do you reframe your large community in such a way that it reduces
your sense of insecurity? How do you make a large community feel like a
small community by the way you reframe and perceive your community? What
works for any individual person will vary to a large extent, but
practicing the art of reframing will gradually lead to improvements in
the speed in which you are able to find specific reframes that work for
you. I will share a few possibilities for reframing the way you think
about your community so that it leads to an automatic increase in your
sense of security in your large community.
Here's your first reframe. Several of the astronauts who have looked
back at planet earth from the moon or from space have described an
experience of overwhelming emotion that involved a feeling of oneness
with all of mankind. They describe a feeling that the earth and all of
its inhabitants have become their family. This is one way to reframe a
large community. For example, if you live in Chicago, you might take a
moment to visualize all the people moving about in and out of Chicago.
Picture the hundreds of faces that you don't recognize moving this way
and that on the streets and sidewalks. As you visualize all of these
people, take on the mentality that these people are your family. These
people may not all actually be "good guys," but thinking of them in that
way will yield far more benefits than problems.
Here's another reframe. Think of a few of the people that you interact
with on a daily basis and do not know. Now think of these people as good
friends that you will get to know and are in the process of becoming
friends with. Think of these people as your community, that is, your
small Intimate community, that is waiting to be born. Think of them in
such a way that you experience a special connection with them, a bond of
trust and hope and fun when you consider that they just might become one
of your best friends at some point in the future. Again, this is a
classic example of the map not being the territory. You cannot actually
become intimate friends with every single stranger, otherwise there
would be too many friends to consider them intimate. But your
imagination is able to create a sense of them being an intimate friend
yet undiscovered. It doesn't matter whether it logically adds up in
reality. If you can imagine it, you can influence your emotional tone
and your emotional experience using your imagination.
Play around with this idea a bit for the next week. Anytime you find
yourself walking among strangers, see what kinds of reframes you can
come up with in your imagination to get your emotions to relax as if you
are among friends who like you, support you, and "have your back."
I'd love to hear your feedback on this one, so send me an email at
Dr.Snyder@socialanxietysecrets.com about what works for you.
Dr. Snyder
Be Courageous!
Dr. Todd Snyder
