The Calm Confidence Podcast: Social Anxiety and Being Yourself

Replaying social interaction and conversations is at the core of social anxiety. For many of us, the social situation itself is not the worst part of social anxiety, it's the agonizing pain of ruminating, criticizing and critiquing every aspect of what just happen. In this episode I explain the practical way to reverse your rumination so you can move on and live your life. Through a combination of mindfulness and useful and compassionate self talk, you can finally put your obsessive thoughts to rest.

Interested in working with me?: https://linktr.ee/calmconfidence

Sources:

Donohue, H. E., Modini, M., & Abbott, M. J. (2024). Psychological interventions for pre-event and post-event rumination in social anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 102, 102823. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2023.102823

Seinsche, R. J., et al. (2022). Social phobic beliefs mediate the relationship between post-event processing and social anxiety. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page range. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8818836/

Vassilopoulos, S. P., Brouzos, A., & Moberly, N. J. (2015). The relationships between metacognition, anticipatory processing, and social anxiety. Behaviour Change, 32(2), 114–126. https://doi.org/10.1017/bec.2015.4

Social anxiety makes everything harder, especially dating. When we are attracted to someone our anxious skyrockets and we become stumbling, bumbling fools. Fear of rejection and humiliation throw more wood on the fire, culminating in what feels like an impossible task to take on. In this video I will break down how you can and should approach dating if you have social anxiety. I'll cover the 3 main phases; finding a date, the date itself, and the worries that come after a date. Interested in checking out the podcast or joining my newsletter? Check out my linktree: https://linktr.ee/calmconfidence

Sorry it’s been a busy week and I haven’t had a chance to record a full episode. This is a short video I made a YouTube a few weeks ago that I forgot to download to the pod. Enjoy!

Social anxiety can feel like a never ending loop that is impossible to escape. The shame we feel traps us. If we don’t act, we feel like cowards. If we do act, but it doesn’t go well, we feel embarrassed, which reconfirms our fears that we are unworthy. In this video I explore how you can finally start taking steps to a brighter future.

Podcast/Instagram/TikTok/Coaching - Find all links in Linktree below:

https://linktr.ee/calmconfidence

Sorry it’s been a busy week and I haven’t had the chance to record an episode, but this is a YouTube video I recorded recently that I forgot to upload to the pod!

Are you worried about how anxious you appear to others in social situations? Often times when we struggle with social anxiety, our biggest fear is that people will see how anxious we are. In response we try to do everything we can to prevent our symptoms from showing, but the more we try to hide them, the more they consume us. In this video I will explain exactly how you can start appearing more confident in social situations. It may not be the answer you were hoping for, or expected.

Interested in joining the free newsletter? Check it out in the my linktree: https://linktr.ee/calmconfidence

Sources:

Leigh E, Chiu K, Clark DM (2021) Self-focused attention and safety behaviours maintain social anxiety in adolescents: An experimental study. PLoS ONE 16(2): e0247703. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0247703

When we are socially anxious for long enough, we start to become very cynical towards the world. We start to believe people are cruel and kindess is pointless. The more we withdraw, the more we believe people have nothing good to offer and we convince ourselves that we're better off being isolating and alone. But now we have become the very negativity that we say we hate. When we start to open back up to the world and share our kindness, we usually get it back in return. We start to realize there are decent people in the world and we start to look forward to meeting people again. Acts of kindness also help us get out of our head and back to connecting with our fellow human beings. So the next time you are feeling anxious, go out and do something kind for something. It's good for you and it's good for the world.

Podcast/Newsletter/Services: https://linktr.ee/calmconfidence

Sources:

Alden, L. E., & Trew, J. L. (2013). Engaging in kind acts increases positive affect in socially anxious individuals. Motivation and Emotion, 37(6), 834-846

Cregg, D. R., & Cheavens, J. S. (2023). Healing through helping: An experimental investigation of the effect of kindness on depression, anxiety, and social connection. The Journal of Positive Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2154695

This may be a difficult episode for some of you to hear, but you need to hear it. In this episode I explore how we allow social anxiety to sabotage our own progress and desire to change. Although not always conscious, sometimes we do this that don't help our social anxiety in the long run because of what we want to feel in the short term. I discuss primary and secondary gains, as well as the effect of resentment on our progress. Podcast/Instagram/TikTok/Coaching - Find all links in Linktree below:https://linktr.ee/calmconfidenceInterested in weekly tips to improve your confidence? Join my newsletter: https://subscribepage.io/pknKh0

For many of us, the scariest part of social anxiety is not simply talking to people, it is the fear that other people will soon find out just how anxious we are. This consumes us with embarrassment and shame, and causes us to try to hide our symptoms. We think hiding our symptoms will make us feel more confident but in reality it only makes us more self conscious and obsessed with our symptoms. In this video I explore how to turn this on it's head.

Join the FREE Newsletter: https://subscribepage.io/pknKh0

Podcast/Instagram/TikTok/Services - Find all links in Linktree below:

https://linktr.ee/calmconfidence

Sources:

Leigh, E., Chiu, K., & Clark, D. M. (2021). Self-focused attention and safety behaviours maintain social anxiety in adolescents: An experimental study. PLOS ONE, 16(2), e0247703. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247703

Hofmann, S. G. (2007). Cognitive factors that maintain social anxiety disorder: A comprehensive model and its treatment implications. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 36(4), 193-209. https://doi.org/10.1080/16506070701421313

Here are 5 very practical ways to keep the conversation going when you don't know what to say. When we feel socially anxious we overcomplicate conversations. There is no deep or mysterious way to get a conversation off the ground, we just need to say SOMETHING! As the conversation progresses, we often find ourselves lost in our mind trying to come up with something to say, instead of simply allowing our brain to give us something to say. In this video I explain how you can vastly improve your conversation skills in just a few simple steps! #socialanxiety #socialskills #confidence

Podcast/Instagram/TikTok/Coaching - Find all links in Linktree below:https://linktr.ee/calmconfidence

Rejection stings, but it doesn't have to consume us. In this video I discuss how to overcome our fear of rejection and learn how to prevent the downward spiral that it often leads to. If you struggle with confidence or low self esteem, it can be quite common to be sensitive to rejection. This video will give you practical tools you can use to become more resilient to the pain of rejection. Podcast/Instagram/TikTok/Coaching - Find all links in Linktree below:

https://linktr.ee/calmconfidence

Sources:Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006). Using self‐report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191105283504

Ghonchehpour, A., Forouzi, M. A., Dehghan, M., Ahmadi, A., Okou, G., & Tirgari, B. (2023). The effect of mindfulness-based stress reduction on rejection sensitivity and resilience in patients with thalassemia: A randomized controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry, 23(1), 281. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-023-04875-3

Peters, J. R., Eisenlohr-Moul, T. A., & Smart, L. M. (2016). Dispositional mindfulness and rejection sensitivity: The critical role of non judgment. Personality and Individual Differences, 93, 125-129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.06.029

Troy, A. S., & Mauss, I. B. (2017). Cognitive reappraisal and acceptance: Effects on emotion, physiology, and perceived cognitive costs. Current Opinion in Psychology, 17, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.06.006 (PMC 6188704)

Social anxiety can be a long battle, which is why you need patience and self compassion. Along the way will be struggles, embarrassing moments, uncomfortable feelings and failed social attempts. It can be very tempting to pack it in as soon as things get difficult, but like most things, real change comes with persistence.

Podcast/Instagram/TikTok/Coaching - Find all links in Linktree below:

https://linktr.ee/calmconfidence

Sources:

Moser, J. S., Dougherty, A., Mattson, W. I., Katz, B., Moran, T. P., Guevarra, D., Shablack, H., Ayduk, Ö., Jonides, J., Berman, M. G., & Kross, E. (2017). Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI. Scientific Reports, 7, Article 4519.

Ayduk, Ö., Kross, E., & others. (2010). Implications of spontaneous self-distancing for adaptive self-reflection when facing negative events. Psychological Science, 21(8), 1166-1174.

Libby, L. K., Eibach, R. P., & Gilovich, T. (2005). Here’s looking at me: The effect of memory perspective on assessments of personal change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(1), 50-62.