How do you make socialization less scary? Goal-oriented interaction like presentations and projects I can handle, but when it comes to general mingling I always wind up standing stiffly off to the side, reminding myself to make eye contact and not bite my nails, and my sentences become more jumbled than a box of miscellaneous legos despite being planned well in advance. HOW IS PEOPLE CONTACT SUPPOSED TO WORK?!
Sorry to hear about your anxiety issues, it can be pretty tough. I’ve talked to a few doctors about this actually and together we’ve come up with a ten-step process that I think has gotten me to a much healthier place. I’m no expert, I don’t know if it’ll work for everyone, but I’ve certainly found success with it.
1. Take a deep, deep breath, and really focus on your breathing. You’re not thinking about the crowd, where to put your hands, and the music and your nails and everything else- all you need to think about for the next twenty seconds is a deep breath. That’s one thing. You can handle one thing.
2. Count to ten. That’s easy, you can do that. You have total control over your ability to count to ten. Look at you, crushing ten.
[Remember, the key to socialization is being comfortable with yourself first. People are like more sophisticated versions of dogs; they can sense if your nervous or tense and they will respond in kind.]
3. Life your shoulders up, then roll them back and down. This is relaxing (and will help your posture) and it is yet another thing you can control, which seems to be in your wheelhouse; you’re comfortable doing presentations because everything is written out or rehearsed, there’s no room for spontaneity, you have everyone’s full attention and you are in complete control.
4. Accept that you won’t be able to control the people/events in this room or party, but you CAN control how you respond to them.
5. Take another deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Very good.
6. Take out the bag of spiders you’ve been keeping in your inside jacket pocket and liberally sprinkle them throughout the party. Slowly, everyone else at the party will notice the spiders (the bag should have lots) and they will all individually come to the realization that they ALSO can’t control the events of the world. When Chaos is given a voice, the playing field becomes even.
[The spiders can smell blood in the air and will thank you for the gift you’ve given them.]
7. Isolate the person who seems to be the most “in charge” in the room. This will be an authority figure (in a work situation) or the person who seems least phased by all of the spiders (at a party or family gathering).
8. Unhinge your lower jaw and consume this person. His authority was imaginary and reliant on the cooperation of cowards and charlatans. You are neither. You are a shark in a sea of guppies. What everyone else in the world is looking for, you’ve already found and discarded.
9. The light inside you is the only light that truly matters. It burns brightest and hottest. It would be blinding to anyone else, but not you, you are the Warrior and the Father.
10. One more deep breath.
Hope this helps!
