How NVC helped me with social anxiety
Social anxiety is a feeling of nervousness, worry, anxiety or fear, focused primarily on social interactions. It is the third largest mental health problem in the world today.
You might have social anxiety is you have troubles with:
Talking to strangers
Speaking in public
Dating
Making eye contact
Entering rooms
Using public restrooms
Going to parties
Eating in front of other people
Going to school or work
Starting conversations
NOTE: If you think you suffer from severe social anxiety, you might want to seek the help of a mental health therapist. I have never done such a therapy, and all I relate here is based on my personal experience of social anxiety, and my personal practice of NVC and mindfulness.
Introversion and social anxiety are two different things. Being an introvert is a characteristic one is born with, whereas social anxiety is learned. Being an introvert means getting energized by spending time alone or with a few intimate friends, whereas having social anxiety means being afraid of being judged or humiliated when interacting with others. You'll find more about the difference between introversion and social anxiety on this website: https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/difference-social-anxiety-introversion_n_5adf5e6de4b07560f3961226
One of the differences between introversion and social anxiety
I am a born introvert, with learned social anxiety in some areas of my life - even though I was never medically diagnosed. The environment I grew up in did not exactly encourage nurturing social interactions. In fact as a kid I didn't have much opportunity to meet other children outside of the school. My parents were receiving friends at home very seldom, and apart from my grandparents visits I did not have much chances to see my parents interacting with other adults. The fact that I am an introvert didn’t help as I was enjoying my time alone. Social interactions remained a mystery for me during a large portion of my life. I remember once secretly wishing for trading some of my IQ points for more social skills – what we call EQ now.
The healing journey of my social anxiety started when I attended my first NVC workshop back in France more than three years ago. I was standing up in front of a group of 20 people, with a nervous smile on my face, trying to hide my embarrassment for not knowing how to answer the question “what are you feeling right now?". After a moment of silence, the facilitator looked at me calmly, and as if he was looking through me, behind my febrile smile, he guessed: “sadness”. My chest almost exploded, like if he had just relieved it from an invisible chain. I was so confused by what just happened. Then he continued and said “need for security”. I burst into tears. He obviously hit a nerve. That was it. For the first time, someone could see my fear behind my mask, without condemning it, judging it, or laughing at it, and it felt good to be able to release all those emotions stuck inside of me for so long.
Social anxiety is based on the fear of being seen and humiliated, that's why people who suffer from social anxiety spend much energy in either avoiding contact with other people, or creating a mask to hide behind.
Below this fear and anxiety, there is a much deeper feeling that I identify as shame. The fear of not being accepted by others is the first barrier to feeling the shame. It is like a prison within the prison. What the facilitator did that day was to sharply see my fear, and express it in a way that was safe enough for me to surrender to the shame below.
From my own understanding, shame and fear relate to each other as following:
- Shame relates to situations that happened in the past and were experienced as humilitating.
- Fear/Anxiety relates to what could possibly happen in my relationship with others, based on the shame of my past self.
Here is an example:
- Shame: people in my family were often telling me how bad my taste was in terms of clothing. My child's mind created shame from that.
- Anxiety/fear: Nowadays there are times I still feel ashamed of the way I dress. As soon as I face a social interaction, I feel anxious about how people are going to judge my appearance. “They will laugh at me”, “they will never want to talk to me anymore” are the thoughts appearing in my mind.
On the top of that, there is an additional layer: the self-hate that comes AFTER the situation happened for having such irrational feelings. “How could I say such things!”, “Why do I always feel afraid when I talk to a person new to me?”, “Why can’t I be like everybody else?”, “I should have said something different”, “They probably thought I am stupid”, "I am too sensitive”, “I don’t know how to behave in public”, “I suck at relationships”. That type of self-blaming rumination feeds the fear and the shame.
Here is how NVC helped me to work with my social anxiety:
1. Fear: I learned to challenge my fears on the cognitive level. When I notice I feel fearful or anxious about an upcoming social situation, I ask myself: is there really a reason of being afraid? I try to make an observation rather than an interpretation of what others say or do. Then I feel my fear in my body (it is often a tensed ball in my belly) , and then I can find the courage to move beyond, and face the real deal: shame.
2. Shame: when talking to someone, and when shame kicks in, I allow myself to feel it fully. I even slow down all my movements so I can feel it in my cells. It might take the shape of tension in my shoulder, a tendency to make my whole body smaller, a wave of heat along my spine. I know shame is there, and for a moment I allow myself to disconnect from the conversation, to go back to myself and really feel it. I acknowledge it by giving empathy to myself. I tell myself “I am feeling shame, and it’s painful. I need self-love, self-acceptance”. Sometimes I can do it while continuing to hear the other person speaking, sometimes I can’t, and it is ok, I know the world will not stop turning because I disconnected from a conversation for a few seconds – that’s all what it takes even though it feels much longer. I even have sentences ready just in case, such as “sorry, my mind went away for a moment, would you mind repeating your last sentence please?”, or if I need to take some space I may use the excuse of going to the bathroom.
3. Self hate: whenever I see my ruminating thoughts coming in my mind, I tell myself “I did the best I could”. (This part is the most difficult part for me.) And if really I can't remove the self doubt from my mind, I might even consider making a request to check with the person what she thought or felt during our conversation.
The bad news is that this feeling of shame is still here, even after years of practicing, and will probably never go away. The good news is that I just need a few seconds to dissolve it each time, just by feeling it.
If you think you have social anxiety and you would like to get rid of it, I am guessing you want to reject the shame. Shame cannot be rejected or suppressed, it is way too big. The only way is to fully feel it. And for that you need to remove the fears from others' judgments and the blame you have for yourself .
If you cannot do it by yourself, you can seek the help of a mental health professional. Another way is to have a regular mindfulness practice, in order to get to know the emanation of your feelings in your body. One on one sessions with a NVC practitioner or a mindfulness practitioner can also help you to uncover your thoughts and your feelings layer by layer, and eventually you can relearn the pleasure of being seen for who you are.
Mindfully yours, Julia.
NVC practitioner
A former engineer and then Montessori educator, Julia Feste got in touch with NonViolent Communication (NVC) during summer 2015 when shifting direction in her career. Since then she has continued to learn and share NVC in three different languages (French, Chinese, English), proving that NVC is a powerful process that applies beyond language and culture barriers. She now helps individuals to cultivate empathetic relationships in their daily environment by offering group classes, sharing circles, individual and couple sessions based on NVC. Her previous work includes a 2 years program for teaching staff and administrators at a Montessori school, 4 to 12 weeks programs for parents, and teaching NVC skills for coaching.
At BMC, Julia holds sessions on NonViolent Communication for Coaching, Sharing Circle, Practice group, NVC for Parenting, Mindful Communication programs for schools, and individual empathy sessions.
You can read her interview in BeijingKids:
http://www.beijing-kids.com/blog/2019/04/19/parenting-confrontation-non-violent-communication-workshop-sat-april-20
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