Tapping for all those times you didn't speak up

A video for those of us with a bit of nice guy syndrome, or anyone who feels afraid to speak out against injustice.

How to overcome social anxiety.

Long time friend and conscious entrepreneur Sebastiaan Van Der Schrier over at social anxiety solutions delivered this article today.

It's an summary of his interviews with experts in their field about the thing that he's been working on for himself and with clients for well over a decade, and something that's becoming more prevalent in todays world - Social anxiety.

It's an odd thing to be scared of people, especially since if you're reading this you probably are one.

I would love to say (like most of us probably) I've made it through life without having its effects bring me to spasms of panic in seemingly innocuous situations. But I'd be lying. Through my goddam teeth.

the first time I really felt it's wrath was around aged 18, fresh from an exuberant period of what appeared to my young eyes to be self actualisation. What in fact it was, was a prolonged jaunt through alcohol and substance abuse, which one day found me in a Melbourne hostel, crimson and sweating, mumbling and stuttering in an attempt to push a sentence out of my taught gullet.

I was the epitome of not good enough. I remember realising to my horror that I was a solid 10,000 miles away from anyone who gave a fuck about me. I was just some long haired little shit who knew nothing about anything and certainly had no business talking to actual people.

Social anxiety, or fear of what other people think, is often rooted in deep fears around acceptance, we feel there are parts of ourselves that are so deplorable if we were ever to reveal them to others we'd be ostracised from society and cast out to our impending and well deserved demise.

It seems to be being driven more and more by an impossible fantasy we're encouraged to indulge in about what we really ought to be if we wish to have our needs met for love and affection et al. Poster pin ups, hollywood archetypes, magazine demi gods with rock hard abs and massive tits. Oh, you're not one of those? Ok, no problem, off you fuck, and really it would be better if you didn't try and pollute the rest of us with your imperfections you know? No offence. Thou shalt project an image of success at all times, and thou shalt not under any circumstances let anyone know you're struggling, sad, depressed, guilty, anxious, or feeling anything other than manically depressing happiness 24/7.

And thus the gap between role model fantasy and actual reality leaves us wallowing in a pit of self contained despair. Which, by the way, is also nowhere near good enough.

So how to overcome social anxiety? Ask the experts! Knowledge is power and I don't think I've met anyone with more of the stuff around this particular subject...

P.S. I'm also sharing this article because I'm in it. And if we're honest that's really the bit you should be focusing on.

Violence addict

Noticing recently the effect that the way we structure our sentences has on the emotions that are elicited, and the how those repetitive sound structures held far out in the fields of our subconscious (Jesus, that's a far out sentence) or unconscious, waiting for a life situation to stimulate them so they can run their patterns.

It's been fascinating me since learning NVC to see how interwoven the way we use language is with the things we feel about our experience. And how much of how we use language is a way to objectify the world around us. It's like I'm relying on my descriptions to be some kind of constant. I apply them voraciously to processes as if they were that thing I've just said, because I've just said so.

A nice table is a nice table because I say so (and I'll contest anyone who disagrees as soon as I begin bond my identity to that). So now I forget (or never even considered) that it's a dynamic process of matter moving in slow motion, that once was air and water, then soil, then tree, then table. And albeit currently in an ergonomic and aesthetically pleasing form that meets many of my needs, it is also in long term decay to becoming probably soil again, or the constituents of some little termite colony. With any luck it will maintain its integrity as a nice table until I finish writing, after that though it can do what it wants.

But its been showing up most in how I've been feeling about other people and myself with lethal judgements like: "This person is a good person, a decent person, a nice person, a beautiful person, a truly wonderful human"

Then as the dynamic ever changing process they are, this person does something that doesn't meet my needs in the way they had been doing previously and suddenly I experience shock, disappointment and rage. "I thought this person was a decent person because they were meeting my needs, but actually it turns out they're an arrogant prick and I hate them". And instead now I believe that judgement.

I'll use this inner dialogue with others which of course means I'm using it to judge and objectify myself. Am I a nice person? Possibly, at times. Am I a dick? Also a potentiality. Do either of those definitions exist? only in my tiny little narrative. In actual reality? Not. Although they will largely shape my emotional experience with it.

So the violence comes from me, and wow it's a rush!

"Actually I think you're just misunderstanding this person..."

"No, Wrong! This person is an arrogant prick, so I win, I'm better than they are, I'm a nice person and they're not, and you're an idiot for thinking otherwise. And who the fuck asked you anyway?"

The power, the control, the intensity of the fight, the feeling of superiority, the rush of being right! A competitive energy grab that I've just nailed. If I can dominate this person convince them they're what I think they are and push their shame buttons better than they can push mine, I can make them hate themselves for what they've done and I get their energy, and I feel fucking great. Empowered. Winning.

Energy competition, consumption, and addiction to the gravity of the black holes within, sucking life force into another dimension. This is energy slavery, domination culture. As long as we're addicted to one another's energy, and the violent language we use to harvest it, this structure will probably maintain.

Solution thinking - feelings and needs focus.

This person is neither a decent person, nor an asshole. A thing has happened, and either that thing has met a ton of needs in me to make life more wonderful, and as a result I feel fucking marvellous.

Or, it has left a ton of needs unmet in me, which since I'm taking responsibility for my own needs and not making any demands on this person, I'm now aware I don't have to manipulate them and take their energy by trying to make them hate themselves. Instead, I give them honest feedback about which needs their actions left unmet (connection, love, empathy, integrity, competence etc) how I felt when that happened (not how I 'felt like' then a load of judgements, but just naming the feeling: vulnerable, sad, frustration, despair) and then do what I need to do to get my needs met elsewhere or from within.

I don't demean them with objectifications by telling them what I think they are, subjugating them to a dependence on my approval for their sense of self (which I can yank away at any time maintaining their obedience to my energetic needs). Instead I give them honest feedback that's connected to what's alive in me and we connect there. In feeling. Beautiful brilliant emotionally autonomous feelings, instead of lifeless judgemental thought.

Either way the person and myself connect through a dose of delicious lively truth, We both remain delightfully emotionally autonomous. Everybody wins.

How do you objectify the people around you and hook them into your approval? Consider this today as you discover how terrible you really are.

#NVC #EnergyPrinciples