Practicing Social Connection to Reduce Social Anxiety
Meeting with people especially strangers makes me want to run freely in open spaces. However when I end up doing it, it feels liberating and rewarding. So as, to feel the experience of a genuine smile or laugh shared. That is worth putting myself through the social awkwardness and let it sit with me. I think I have social awkwardness but the people I meet with tell me they do not detect it. So maybe it’s a belief and that is something I can sit with.
I do feel self conscious when it comes to doing things and feel definitely conscious of what other people think of me. Once I started meeting lots of people and stay amidst them in events, I genuinely enjoy the experience. I thoroughly experience the joy of just being out in the world being around people. Makes me want to think of the possibility of sharing a smile with people I do not know of.
Making matters worse is the innate awareness of my movements. However, when I let go and get comfortable for the purpose of why I’m there. Along with shifting the focus out of myself, I become more tolerable in my own skin. The shift from self to others gives me the ability to know the purpose clearly and enable me in shifting the mountain into a molehill as Dr Ellen Hendriksen says in “How to be Yourself”. Definitely gets better as I expose myself to the social settings where I can meet people that I do not know completely. Doing this on a day to day basis helps me know I can come about regular life in a comfortable discomfort.