Social Anxiety? The #1 Thing You Can Do Differently To Feel Better

Ever feel nervous before a social gathering? Do you fidget and feel out of place around others? Then, do you re-think everything you said after you leave?

Social anxiety is disempowering and frustrating. You look around and it seems like everyone else having a good time. But on the inside, you’re unable to relax and be yourself.

You start to overthink things. You stumble over words. Your heart rate goes up and you get a little sweaty. Some people feel a tightness in their chest, while others feel it in their gut.

For some, it’s extreme and makes them avoid future gatherings altogether. You talk yourself out of it, come up with excuses, or find yourself getting sick the day of, so you have to cancel plans.

I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be this way at all.

Getting to the Root of Social Anxiety

Each month, I host a Live Coaching Call for all the members of The Carol Tuttle Healing Center. They get to ask me questions and receive one-on-one support for the experiences they’re going through.

We just had the coaching call for June, and I opened it up to live questions right away. One of my guests, Kate, asked the following question:

“I’d love some advice on how to manage a longstanding issue with social anxiety. I am mostly fine in social situations now, but still, sometimes panic and freeze.”

As an adult, we want to feel confident and enjoy our lives. We want to be ourselves around family and friends—and when we’re around strangers too!

So what’s going on when we simply can’t?

(Watch the Coaching Call replay here by joining the Healing Center. We have recordings of all past coaching calls in the Healing Center so that you can return to them any time you need coaching!)

Finding Out Where Your Anxiety Comes From

I’m going to teach you a technique to help you handle social anxiety when you’re feeling it in the moment. But first, it’s important to do a little investigating and see where it’s coming from.

Questions to ask yourself:

“What was my home environment like growing up?” Think back to the dynamics you lived with every day. Was there tension, expectations of perfection, or strong personalities that made you feel small? Was your voice and opinion honored? Did you feel valued and important?

“Was I ever bullied?” Even if you were never shoved around on the playground by the big kids at school, verbal and emotional teasing can affect us deeply. Being made fun of for being smart, your looks, your activities, or your preferences wears kids down, no matter their age.

“Did I ever change/alter myself to fit in?” Maybe you cut your hair, started wearing different clothes, pretended to be less smart, or acted cool and tough. When kids learn they have to chip away at their true selves in order to protect themselves and feel “safe,” they lose confidence.

When we take a look at our responses to these questions, we start to see where we’ve lost connection with our authenticity in order to be accepted. It puts us on high alert in social settings. We go in with a subconscious intention to be affirmed by others, instead of already feeling grounded in ourselves.

I encourage you to journal about these realizations and breathe deeply as you do. Move that energy!

A 10-Second Technique to Snap You Out of Social Anxiety

When you experience anxiety as a child, your autoimmune system takes on that anxiety and learns to read things a certain way. When your anxiety gets triggered, your whole system goes into the fight and flight response.

Use this technique the next time you feel this way:

1. Recognize it’s a response to an old, but very real issue that occurred in your past. Validate your inner child. See that age of you and tell her she’s fine. Just imagine you taking that small child in your arms, and telling her she’s safe now, that you’re the adult.
2. Practice the 10-Second Pivot I teach in the Carol Tuttle Healing Center. Take just 10 seconds to change your perception, change your expectations, and change your judgments — especially the ones you’re having about yourself.
3. Do the Triple Warmer Release. Your fight and flight energy runs up your ring finger, up the side of your arm, up over your shoulder, to the earlobe, and then up behind the ear to the temple. With your hand, flush that line from the top of your temple, all the way down to the tip of your ring finger. This will calm down the fight or flight response.

Doing these steps will retrain your autoimmune system to respond differently. You get to show your system that it’s a different time. “I’m the adult and I can create a positive experience.”

(Want to get the full experience of this coaching call? Watch the Coaching Call replay here by joining the Healing Center.)

Let’s heal your inner child this summer—together.

In the Carol Tuttle Healing, I have a powerful resource called the Healing Plan for Childhood Wounding. In just 4 weeks, I guide you through deep energy sessions that heal old emotional wounds so you can become a calmer, more confident adult.

I’m personally guiding the members of the Healing Center through this plan starting on July 11. When you join us, you’ll get the support from everyone in our private Facebook group, access to my Support Angels, and you’ll be able to be on our live Coaching Call in July to ask questions about your childhood experience.

This plan is my most popular and most powerful. Come see why it changes lives.

Start your (FREE) complimentary two weeks here!

How did this call help you? Post about your insights and “aha” moments in the members-only Healing Center Facebook group.

Psst. This coaching call had giveaways exclusively for our live Zoom attendees that are now closed. As you watch the replay, if you feel a tug toward any of the resources mentioned, treat yourself to them! You’re being called to them for a reason.

Bless you,