I struggled with social anxiety for most of my life. It began in childhood. It wasn’t until I discovered the power of acceptance that I was able to recover from this emotionally painful condition.
Recovery comes when we accept ourselves the way we are. The ultimate goal with the Acceptance Method is to accept everything about ourselves.
When a bully wants to hurt us, what do they look for? Things about ourselves that bother us. The more the thing bothers us the easier time the bully has. They home in on our weakness.
When we accept whatever that is about ourselves, it is no longer a weakness. We become stronger. We can face the bully with an inner strength, born of acceptance. And when we do, miraculously, the bully leaves us alone and goes off looking for easier prey.
Anxiety is a bully, and we deal with it the same way by accepting everything about ourselves and facing the bully.
My Struggle
As a personal example, I was a very shy, quiet kid. When I was 5 to 6 years old, I remember family members seeing me react by saying, “Ohhh, he’s so shy!” This became something I hated about myself and made me feel so defective and ashamed. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t change.
When I became an adult, it developed into social anxiety. It would only take someone saying “You’re really quiet” to trigger my shame and embarrassment. Friends would sometimes have fun teasing me about it. Some people used my fear and shame to hurt me. People and situations triggered it over and over. And each time, it reinforced that reaction pattern.
This habitual reaction became so powerful that it seemed impossible for me to overcome.
Recovery
Through application of the principles of acceptance, I finally made peace with being introverted and quiet. I accepted it. For a while the old social anxiety reaction was still triggered, but I did my best to accept I was quiet, accept that I was easily triggered, accept my reaction of feeling shame and embarrassment, and accept that for a while I still beat myself up for reacting that way.
Here is how things progressed (over a period of many months):
- Bit by bit, I stopped beating myself up
- gradually I had less of a social anxiety reaction
- then that happened less frequently
- subsequently, it would take more to trigger me
- then I became able to admit openly I was introverted/shy/quiet
- later, I could laugh about it
- finally, it no longer bothered me at all
It wasn’t a straight-line progression. There were many hiccups (setbacks) along the way, but that was my path to recovery from social anxiety.
To be clear, this recovery did not make me an extrovert. I am still introverted. I still need to limit my social interactions at times, and recharge my batteries with some alone time. But I am no longer shy. I have confidence, and can be outgoing when I choose to be.
No-one teases me anymore, and even if they tried, it would almost certainly fail. In any case, if they succeeded in embarrassing me, I would accept my reaction and be able to laugh about it.
This strength comes from my decision to accept everything about myself — all the things I viewed as the Good, the Bad and the Ugly — and removing those artificial judgments and labels. And to extend the Clint Eastwood reference a bit further… …I can challenge the anxiety bully: “Go ahead. Make my day”.