👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Help for High Anxiety & Panic: www.paigepradko.com/panic 👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Panic Attack Quiz: www.paigepradko.com/panic-quiz 👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Helpful PDF: What to do when High Anxiety & Panic Strikes: FACE Fear paigepradko.com/facefear 👉🏼👉🏼 Free PDF: Why Do I Feel That in my Body? Bodily Symptoms Due to Anxiety, Stress & Panic www.paigepradko.com/bodyanxiety 👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Helpful PDF: What to do when High Anxiety & Panic Strikes: FACE Fear paigepradko.com/facefear 👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Health Anxiety Self Assessment www.paigepradko.com/healthanxietyquiz 👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼For MORE Therapy Resources or to Contact Paige: www.paigepradko.com
Thank you for this video. I still struggle with social anxiety even after several years of exposing myself to social situations and getting to know larger groups of people. I have made significant improvements being comfortable in my own skin,, but I still feel lingering shame and I fear being exposed of my awkwardness and secret anxiety of my daily life. I don't have any significant childhood trauma as I grew up in a stable home, so I can't figure out why I struggle so much. Maybe ill never know and I just need to have compassion on myself and not self loathe anymore. I might be my own worst critic and bully 😔
It sounds like you are challenging yourself and doing the best you can. Treat yourself with compassion and kindness as it sounds like shame is there. ❤️
I exposed myself to social interactions in the past five years. The difficulty is that I make people feel awful around me. They can sense my toxic shame - it makes them so uncomfortable because I'm painfully self-conscious and extremely awkward. I can't control the feeling. I don't feel at ease with myself when I have to talk to people. I don't understand what's happening to me. I don't want to avoid people. And I don't want to hide from them. But the issue is that this sense of toxic shame doesn't go away even though I've been in public for about six years - I work in a restaurant. I'm 31 years old and I've never been in a relationship with a woman; all women avoid me. I'm doing my best to look charming; I take care of myself and dress well, but that toxic feeling of shame makes people suspicious of me. They keep me at a distance. When I get to work in the morning, my co-workers notice me, their eyes blink and they look in the other direction. I don't know how can I beat this awful feeling of toxic shame.
@@ovidiudrobota2182, I’m so sorry. It can help to open up to a caring person about what you are struggling with and learn from that relationship. Have compassion for yourself in those moments when you are feeling that shame and remind yourself that you are a worthy and lovable person that is trying their best to heal.
Some things that helped me were meditation and hypnosis videos. Some take you back to the first time you felt this way so you can try to resolve it at the root. It also helps to develop a larger, spiritual perspective. Get to know who you are as a soul vs. a body or a mind. You have intrinsic value that no damaging experience can touch. Try to go to that place inside you as often as possible. Also therapy helps a lot. Group therapy too when you are ready.
Hey! I had this same problem and let me tell you, the feeling that people 'notice' your toxic shame is an illusion. It's not real. Think of it like this, the same way you're all up in your head thinking about how you present is the same way they're in their heads thinking about their lives too. They only give you a passing thought. In their world, you're just an Npc. And that's fine. Because in your world there are Npcs as well. I am an npc to you as well. You don't know me, and once you read my comment, I'll become just a passing thought. It's life. Everyone's too busy up in their heads. Go compliment that girl you have a crush on, talk to that person you think doesn't flow with your energy. Chances are, they think you keep your distance because you've noticed an insecurity of theirs too. Go out there! Live life.
I've looked into social anxiety so much, but I really thought shame was a result of the anxiety. Never thought of it the other way around. Thank you for the workbook recommendation!
I never thought of it the other way around either. It was an eye opener for me to realize that social anxiety is a problem with tolerating the feeling of shame. And, if we understand that shame is so painful, it makes sense why we have tried to avoid feeling it. But, understanding this can help someone have much more compassion for themselves as they experiment and learn that they can improve their ability to tolerate the feeling of shame. And treat themselves with compassion when they experience it versus feeling terrible about not doing enough social exposures.
I’ve had social anxiety for years and used to completely avoid social interactions and shut down completely in groups. Now I’m able to talk in groups and show more of my personality but when I do I feel intense guilt and shame and perseverate on the simplest conversation I have for days. It is debilitating and I don’t know when to trust some of my thoughts because of it.
Thanks for this perspective. I have suffered from social anxiety for a long time myself and have also tried helping many others with it as a psychiatric nurse. Exposure rarely really works well compared to other anxiety issues as you say, i never saw it this clearly before! Focusing on shame seems like a very promising idea and it matches well with my own experience of social anxiety. My thing started with fear of blushing in my teenage years, at times i felt shame so intense it's a wonder it wasn't fatal!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I was also an anxiety ridden teen. It is a different perspective from social anxiety and one that hits home with me as well as my clients. If we think about helping ourselves tolerate shame with self compassion, it seems more helpful than exposure alone.
I used to be a really huge social butterfly and I even hide it well for awhile up to a certain point and then that's when the floodgates come crashing through and I end up self sabotaging or making a fool of myself. And it's really a shame because there have been some people in my life that I really liked and wanted to be friends with or be social with and I ended up ruining any chance I might have had. People will end up blocking me.or ignoring me or misunderstanding me... Which in all actuality ends up being more frustrating because the whole reason they misunderstand me is because I have shown them something that isnt me it's so frustrating. Then you try to apologize and you try to make amends and you try to ask them to forgive you and to start over which makes you feel even worse.... But I am not realizing that I am a human being I need to forgive myself and love myself and not be so caught up in what others think. It's just when you make a fool of yourself and it's not really who you are you want to explain yourself but it's already to late. This is why I'm so thankful for my friends that have stayed by my side knowing this it's not easy to admit thank you I love you guys!!
My heart goes out to you because it sounds like all you want is love and acceptance. Those are basic human needs. Yes, give that acceptance and compassion to yourself until you find those people that accept you no matter what. We all have times when we put out different amounts of energy and emotion in social situations. Try your best to not criticize yourself for those times but accept and love yourself for trying to connect. ❤️
Hi paige I'm exactly in the same phase of this social anxiety, I am trying to fix it but still those previous conditioned mind hardly preventing me to fix the issue and feeling those types of fears like fear of failure, success,rejection, criticism, society, fear of taking wrong decision, talking with others etc, I am trying to fixing all this by self expose therapy myself but failed in short term and feels normally sticks old negative thinking patterns 😢 especially when it comes to long time spending in outside or any social situations I felt like shame also then I thought its may be type of anxiety but when it comes to fix myself this problem I'm only lasts short time period then my confidence is suddenly declined Sometimes even difficult to understand myself what exactly is happening to me😞
I want you to know you’re not alone. I believe that there is so much more going on than an anxiety condition. There are deep seated shame traumas likely from early childhood and we developed ways to avoid or cope with that shame. This is where anxiety steps in. What we avoid, of course reinforces anxiety. So…if we avoid feeling shame…we are attaching our fear response (anxiety) to the experience of feeling shame. Now we have shame and anxiety linked together. Awful! The way through is to remind ourselves that our strong reaction is based in the past, when we were children and not equipped to cope with shame. We can get better at tolerating that feeling. We can treat ourselves with compassion and understanding when we feel overwhelming shame. Exposure helps, along with the understanding and compassion of why it is so painful. ❤️
Hey Paige, thank you for your work! I have a question (maybe a potential topic for a video?). We know that, most of the time, the outside content of the obsession(contamination, relationship, harm, etc) does not matter that much. I have been successful in detaching, at least to some extent, the outside content from the suffering that obsessing causes. For example, instead of letting myself be convinced that I am getting contaminated, I acknowledge that my mind is trying to find something to latch on. The problem, however, is that I end up in a "pure suffering" state, something that feels like mental pain, "brain frying" without outside content. Any tips on where to go from here?
When you describe ending up in a “pure suffering” state, it sounds like you are sitting with the discomfort/anxiety/distress without doing anything to calm yourself. This is exactly what it feels like when you are beginning ERP. When you sit with this feeling of being contaminated for example, and not trying to fix it, you are sitting in that suffering space. This is how your brain learns that you survive and are okay and what you thought was harmful was not harmful. You are learning that you CAN tolerate what you thought you could not.
So I’ll go to the gatherings and try to put myself out there to enjoy the company of others and have a good time but a lot of times I feel like my presence isn’t wanted. When I try to engage I’ll be met with replies that feel like they’re trying to say something rude to shut me down. Or just simple quick responses and then continue talking amongst each other and then I still don’t really feel included in the group and then when I can finally get out of there I feel even worse and lonely than I did before. I just want to feel accepted or wanted.
I understand wanting to feel accepted, wanted and part of the group. That is a natural human need. And sometimes it is very difficult to find a group or even a person that makes us feel that way. There has been research that people with social anxiety, and possibly anxiety in general tend to read people’s neutral expressions as negative. I found that research interesting. I wonder if it is a self protection mechanism that causes a person to read neutral as negative. Please have compassion for yourself and do not let negative group experiences keep you from trying to find that person or persons that make you feel accepted and wanted and included. ❤️
You're pretty much right I guess, but for social phobia specifically the thing holding me back is the crushing fear of negative reinforcement. To go out beyond my comfort zone and be scolded, ridiculed, derided; reinforcing, effectively, my view of myself as a social failure. It's that fear of imagined failures in social situations becoming a reality- lending legitimacy to my low self worth- that keeps me away from them
👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Help for High Anxiety & Panic:
www.paigepradko.com/panic
👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Panic Attack Quiz:
www.paigepradko.com/panic-quiz
👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Helpful PDF: What to do when High Anxiety & Panic Strikes: FACE Fear
paigepradko.com/facefear
👉🏼👉🏼 Free PDF: Why Do I Feel That in my Body? Bodily Symptoms Due to Anxiety, Stress & Panic
www.paigepradko.com/bodyanxiety
👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Helpful PDF: What to do when High Anxiety & Panic Strikes: FACE Fear
paigepradko.com/facefear
👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Health Anxiety Self Assessment
www.paigepradko.com/healthanxietyquiz
👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼For MORE Therapy Resources or to Contact Paige:
www.paigepradko.com
Thank you for this video. I still struggle with social anxiety even after several years of exposing myself to social situations and getting to know larger groups of people. I have made significant improvements being comfortable in my own skin,, but I still feel lingering shame and I fear being exposed of my awkwardness and secret anxiety of my daily life. I don't have any significant childhood trauma as I grew up in a stable home, so I can't figure out why I struggle so much. Maybe ill never know and I just need to have compassion on myself and not self loathe anymore. I might be my own worst critic and bully 😔
It sounds like you are challenging yourself and doing the best you can. Treat yourself with compassion and kindness as it sounds like shame is there. ❤️
Childhood trauma can be neglect in the emotional sense as well, not being able to feel your emotions when you were a child and the rejection of peers
I exposed myself to social interactions in the past five years. The difficulty is that I make people feel awful around me. They can sense my toxic shame - it makes them so uncomfortable because I'm painfully self-conscious and extremely awkward. I can't control the feeling. I don't feel at ease with myself when I have to talk to people. I don't understand what's happening to me. I don't want to avoid people. And I don't want to hide from them. But the issue is that this sense of toxic shame doesn't go away even though I've been in public for about six years - I work in a restaurant. I'm 31 years old and I've never been in a relationship with a woman; all women avoid me. I'm doing my best to look charming; I take care of myself and dress well, but that toxic feeling of shame makes people suspicious of me. They keep me at a distance. When I get to work in the morning, my co-workers notice me, their eyes blink and they look in the other direction. I don't know how can I beat this awful feeling of toxic shame.
@@ovidiudrobota2182, I’m so sorry. It can help to open up to a caring person about what you are struggling with and learn from that relationship. Have compassion for yourself in those moments when you are feeling that shame and remind yourself that you are a worthy and lovable person that is trying their best to heal.
Some things that helped me were meditation and hypnosis videos. Some take you back to the first time you felt this way so you can try to resolve it at the root. It also helps to develop a larger, spiritual perspective. Get to know who you are as a soul vs. a body or a mind. You have intrinsic value that no damaging experience can touch. Try to go to that place inside you as often as possible. Also therapy helps a lot. Group therapy too when you are ready.
Hey! I had this same problem and let me tell you, the feeling that people 'notice' your toxic shame is an illusion. It's not real. Think of it like this, the same way you're all up in your head thinking about how you present is the same way they're in their heads thinking about their lives too. They only give you a passing thought. In their world, you're just an Npc.
And that's fine.
Because in your world there are Npcs as well. I am an npc to you as well. You don't know me, and once you read my comment, I'll become just a passing thought.
It's life. Everyone's too busy up in their heads. Go compliment that girl you have a crush on, talk to that person you think doesn't flow with your energy. Chances are, they think you keep your distance because you've noticed an insecurity of theirs too. Go out there! Live life.
@@Emorywritesatdawn …beautiful advice ❤️
@@PaigePradkoTherapy thank you❤️❤️
I've looked into social anxiety so much, but I really thought shame was a result of the anxiety. Never thought of it the other way around.
Thank you for the workbook recommendation!
I never thought of it the other way around either. It was an eye opener for me to realize that social anxiety is a problem with tolerating the feeling of shame. And, if we understand that shame is so painful, it makes sense why we have tried to avoid feeling it. But, understanding this can help someone have much more compassion for themselves as they experiment and learn that they can improve their ability to tolerate the feeling of shame. And treat themselves with compassion when they experience it versus feeling terrible about not doing enough social exposures.
I’ve had social anxiety for years and used to completely avoid social interactions and shut down completely in groups. Now I’m able to talk in groups and show more of my personality but when I do I feel intense guilt and shame and perseverate on the simplest conversation I have for days. It is debilitating and I don’t know when to trust some of my thoughts because of it.
I agree, it is a shame problem, social anxiety has to do with very deep and exruciating pain of not belonging
This really speaks to me. I feel like shame dictates my life.
This was really eye opening, thank you.
You're so welcome!
Thanks for this perspective. I have suffered from social anxiety for a long time myself and have also tried helping many others with it as a psychiatric nurse. Exposure rarely really works well compared to other anxiety issues as you say, i never saw it this clearly before! Focusing on shame seems like a very promising idea and it matches well with my own experience of social anxiety. My thing started with fear of blushing in my teenage years, at times i felt shame so intense it's a wonder it wasn't fatal!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I was also an anxiety ridden teen. It is a different perspective from social anxiety and one that hits home with me as well as my clients. If we think about helping ourselves tolerate shame with self compassion, it seems more helpful than exposure alone.
I really needed this. I actually struggle with social anxiety and fear of judgement. Thank you so much for this video!
You’re welcome. ❤️
I used to be a really huge social butterfly and I even hide it well for awhile up to a certain point and then that's when the floodgates come crashing through and I end up self sabotaging or making a fool of myself. And it's really a shame because there have been some people in my life that I really liked and wanted to be friends with or be social with and I ended up ruining any chance I might have had. People will end up blocking me.or ignoring me or misunderstanding me... Which in all actuality ends up being more frustrating because the whole reason they misunderstand me is because I have shown them something that isnt me it's so frustrating. Then you try to apologize and you try to make amends and you try to ask them to forgive you and to start over which makes you feel even worse.... But I am not realizing that I am a human being I need to forgive myself and love myself and not be so caught up in what others think. It's just when you make a fool of yourself and it's not really who you are you want to explain yourself but it's already to late. This is why I'm so thankful for my friends that have stayed by my side knowing this it's not easy to admit thank you I love you guys!!
My heart goes out to you because it sounds like all you want is love and acceptance. Those are basic human needs. Yes, give that acceptance and compassion to yourself until you find those people that accept you no matter what. We all have times when we put out different amounts of energy and emotion in social situations. Try your best to not criticize yourself for those times but accept and love yourself for trying to connect. ❤️
Mele Kalikimaka ( Merry Christmas) and Mahalo for another video.
Thank you, Trish. Mele Kalikimaka to you too! ❤️
My anxiety is mostly because of a physical deformity (terrible dentition). Treatment is so damn expensive🙁
I am so sorry 😢
This is a helpful perspective! It makes more sense than any other explanation.
Thank you very much
Hi paige I'm exactly in the same phase of this social anxiety, I am trying to fix it but still those previous conditioned mind hardly preventing me to fix the issue and feeling those types of fears like fear of failure, success,rejection, criticism, society, fear of taking wrong decision, talking with others etc, I am trying to fixing all this by self expose therapy myself but failed in short term and feels normally sticks old negative thinking patterns 😢 especially when it comes to long time spending in outside or any social situations I felt like shame also then I thought its may be type of anxiety but when it comes to fix myself this problem I'm only lasts short time period then my confidence is suddenly declined
Sometimes even difficult to understand myself what exactly is happening to me😞
I want you to know you’re not alone. I believe that there is so much more going on than an anxiety condition. There are deep seated shame traumas likely from early childhood and we developed ways to avoid or cope with that shame. This is where anxiety steps in. What we avoid, of course reinforces anxiety. So…if we avoid feeling shame…we are attaching our fear response (anxiety) to the experience of feeling shame. Now we have shame and anxiety linked together. Awful! The way through is to remind ourselves that our strong reaction is based in the past, when we were children and not equipped to cope with shame. We can get better at tolerating that feeling. We can treat ourselves with compassion and understanding when we feel overwhelming shame. Exposure helps, along with the understanding and compassion of why it is so painful. ❤️
Hey Paige, thank you for your work! I have a question (maybe a potential topic for a video?).
We know that, most of the time, the outside content of the obsession(contamination, relationship, harm, etc) does not matter that much. I have been successful in detaching, at least to some extent, the outside content from the suffering that obsessing causes. For example, instead of letting myself be convinced that I am getting contaminated, I acknowledge that my mind is trying to find something to latch on. The problem, however, is that I end up in a "pure suffering" state, something that feels like mental pain, "brain frying" without outside content. Any tips on where to go from here?
When you describe ending up in a “pure suffering” state, it sounds like you are sitting with the discomfort/anxiety/distress without doing anything to calm yourself. This is exactly what it feels like when you are beginning ERP. When you sit with this feeling of being contaminated for example, and not trying to fix it, you are sitting in that suffering space. This is how your brain learns that you survive and are okay and what you thought was harmful was not harmful. You are learning that you CAN tolerate what you thought you could not.
Social anxiety is Shame anxiety 💯
So I’ll go to the gatherings and try to put myself out there to enjoy the company of others and have a good time but a lot of times I feel like my presence isn’t wanted. When I try to engage I’ll be met with replies that feel like they’re trying to say something rude to shut me down. Or just simple quick responses and then continue talking amongst each other and then I still don’t really feel included in the group and then when I can finally get out of there I feel even worse and lonely than I did before. I just want to feel accepted or wanted.
I understand wanting to feel accepted, wanted and part of the group. That is a natural human need. And sometimes it is very difficult to find a group or even a person that makes us feel that way. There has been research that people with social anxiety, and possibly anxiety in general tend to read people’s neutral expressions as negative. I found that research interesting. I wonder if it is a self protection mechanism that causes a person to read neutral as negative. Please have compassion for yourself and do not let negative group experiences keep you from trying to find that person or persons that make you feel accepted and wanted and included. ❤️
@@PaigePradkoTherapy Thank you for taking the time to reply. I will try to keep that perspective in mind. ❤️
Same with all fears and phobias, the only way to defeat them is to face them head on, but many people don't want to face them..
Yes. This is true.
You're pretty much right I guess, but for social phobia specifically the thing holding me back is the crushing fear of negative reinforcement. To go out beyond my comfort zone and be scolded, ridiculed, derided; reinforcing, effectively, my view of myself as a social failure. It's that fear of imagined failures in social situations becoming a reality- lending legitimacy to my low self worth- that keeps me away from them