Becca Ellis
Social Anxiety Sucks!
"Don't be shy!
Just speak to them, they won't bite!"
Oh right, silly me, I hadn't thought of that!
People who don't struggle with social anxiety can find it hard to understand how debilitating it is, as if we could and should "just get on with it" and stop being such a (choose your favourite put down here).
"Oh, yes, I'm shy too!"
Or you take the risk of sharing your struggle with someone ( in my experience, this in itself is a dilemma) again, they don't grasp the extent of how it impacts your life, and brush it off.
I didn't even know it was a thing until after I discovered EFT in 2013. I just couldn't understand why I needed a drink to get through some social encounters, or avoided or suffered through others. I found an article about using EFT for social anxiety and have never looked back.
Knowing this was a thing and I was not alone and that tapping (EFT) could help was like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
I won't lie, the best person to turn to for Social Anxiety is Sebastiaan van der Scrier. He runs an amazing community called the Social Confidence Club, where I've been a member since 2021.
The progress I've made since joining means that I'm finally getting my professional life back on track,ie putting myself out there and not operating in the dark. To be honest, I made some great progress on my own once I knew what to do - Seb's self-paced programmes were life savers . But then I hit resistance and got distracted and didn't come back to focussing on this until I joined the club.
Regularity was key, and community was key.
Working on resistance is key, and working on acceptance is key.
The bad news is that club opens its doors once a year.
So since discovering what I was dealing with and having worked with other people with SA, not to mention tapping along with club webinars every Sunday for the last 4 years I feel like I have a very deep understanding of what it means to have SA, and what it takes to get over it.
And importantly for me, I can almost say "I'm over it!"
I'm no longer embarassed to talk about what I do because "it can't work that well if you're still in that state, ha!" Even if I was getting great results with clients my own stuckness made me feel like a bad advert if I couldn't clear my own very obvious block, in just a few sessions.
I've learnt there is a vast range of experience, and some people, like me, have a longer journey to social ease than others. If you've been confident and socially at ease most of your life, it's possible that it won't take so long to return to that state. If it's something you've always lived with and maybe not had a name for, it's possible it will take longer. In which case SCC is a great investment.
However as a neurospicer there are some things that will always overstimulate me and cause symptoms. But I'm not freaking out about the symptoms, I don't get anticipatory anxiety about social encounters - even giving workshops! - and I find my formerly intentionally small world is opening up more an more all the time.
If you need some help staying on track, or want to delve into the roots of your particular flavour of SA and can't to wait for the club to re open, let's chat and see if we are a good fit.
I also support people who are members of the club at a discounted price.