what is social phobia? The National Institute of Mental Health defines social phobia (also called social anxiety disorder) as “overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-awareness in everyday social situations”. Common activities like shopping or using a public bathroom can trigger intense and debilitating fear.
It is important to learn how to manage your social anxiety because if you don’t, you will not attract the kind of people you want in your life, you will no longer have power and influence and you will have a hard time achieving your goals. If you overcome your social anxiety you will have great people in your life, you will have more power and influence and you will reach your goals much more easily.
The exercise that I’m going to share with you to help with social anxiety is called Spatial Anchoring.
In the space anchor we use our body to help remove and process negative emotions. In the following exercise we will use our body to change our spatial position and consequently change our perspective. This change of perspective is what helps to alleviate social phobia.
The space anchoring exercise has a simple 3-step process:
1. Find a quiet and peaceful place to get in touch with the phobia.
2. View a holographic representation of feeling.
3. Physically step back from the holographic view.
Now we will examine the exercise in more detail. I will ask you to really try it once you have finished reading the article.
First, find a calm and peaceful place. Stand up and close your eyes. On a scale of 1 to 10 imagine a situation that triggers a low amount of anxiety, perhaps a 2 or 3.
Once you have this feeling, create a holographic view of it. To help create the visualization, ask yourself: what color is it? What shape is it? How does it move? Where is it in my body?
When you have a clear and vivid image of feeling, take a step back. Many people experience an immediate reduction in anxiety as soon as they step back. You can continue creating visualizations and take a step back to further reduce negative sentiment.
When you have a clear and vivid image of feeling, take a step back. Many people experience an immediate reduction in anxiety as soon as they step back. You can continue creating visualizations and take a step back to further reduce negative sentiment.
Furthermore, this exercise can help with social anxiety when we are actually in a situation that triggers negative feelings. Follow the previous steps every time social phobia is activated.
Today we have learned a powerful exercise to help process fear and anxiety that arise when we are around people. The better we get into the elaboration of the fear of people and social anxiety, the better we will feel and the less negative feelings will interfere with our lives.
