You are always anxious, almost to the point of having a panic attack.
You are breathing heavy, struggling to catch your breath, and before you know it, you don’t know what is happening to you around you.
And you don’t like that…
So you are feeling even more embarrassed around people you’ve just met for the first time.
All you want is for them to like you. But you also know you need to be fully present in your body and your mind to enjoy the moment with the people you’ve just met.
You see so many opportunities to make new friends…
You want to feel relaxed and calm to move through conversations without feeling nervous or anxious.
By the end of this blog, I’d like you to know WHY you feel anxious around people you are meeting for the first time, WHAT you could think if you made some changes, WHAT the obstacles have been to you making changes already, and WHAT you can do differently.
REASONS YOU FEEL ANXIOUS AROUND NEW PEOPLE.
Maybe you have judged yourself that you aren’t cool enough, or that you have nothing interesting to say, or that people don’t find you interesting.
Maybe you continue to negatively speak to yourself so you don’t believe that people actually want to get to know you
Maybe you overthink a simple encounter and blame yourself when it doesn’t go as planned.
AMAZING THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU LEARN TO RELAX YOUR MIND AND BODY IN THE MOMENT.
You could be present with the people you just met to get to know them and what they are about.
You could show interest in understanding them and by doing so, you will notice that the focus becomes less about what you look at and think about to WHAT may be interesting to someone else.
You could share about yourself without feeling exposed, and this allows you to normalize the experiences you’ve been through and this makes for an easy-flowing conversation.
You could become aware of the thoughts that are making you feel anxious and worried and manage them using coping skills that work. This helps you understand the thoughts, that lead to certain emotions for you.
You could practice deep breathing at the moment to get refocused on why you are there. Deep breathing exercises are a great way to ground yourself when you are feeling out of control with anxiety.
You could make it about fun without expecting yourself or others to be a certain way. This level of expectations gets in the way of feeling present, or just enjoying yourself, so set your intention and remember that intention.
You could be less judgemental and more understanding of yourself and others. We tend to judge others harshly because we are judging ourselves harshly. So becoming aware that being kind to yourself allows you to see yourself as a human who doesn’t always have to get it right.
You could give yourself permission to just be in the moment without second-guessing yourself. This helps you relax ruminating thoughts and keeps you focused on what is happening.
WHY CAN’T I STOP FEELING ANXIOUS ON MY OWN?/Why isn’t what I’m trying, working?
You’ve said to yourself that you have nothing to offer them, so you prefer to sit in the background and SAY NOTHING, OR…
You can not stop ruminating about everything you are doing wrong SO you miss the moments you do something RIGHT.
Or you have very high expectations of yourself and worry about what other people think of you.
Or you figured that even though you are uncomfortable around people, it is not as bad as you are making it out to be.
Or you’ve convinced yourself that there is nothing that can help you in those situations and you just have to deal with it.
Whatever the reason, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. So many people experience nervous feelings, panic attacks,s or social anxiety just at the thought of meeting new people.
But you don’t have to keep going through this defeating feeling every time you are about to meet new people. Here are these 9 steps that can start to make your experiences FEEL way better for your liking…
What you can do differently is…
- Practice mindfulness exercises to get connected with your mind and body..meditation is a good tool for this as well as grounding exercises to help you remain present in your body.
- Start recognizing the things that are great about you, take the time to appreciate them, acknowledge them and be proud to share with others.
- Instead of worrying about everything that you are doing wrong, try thinking about the one thing that you did right, or want to do right while out with people and focus on that instead.
- Give yourself permission to be human, which means you will make mistakes and everyone will not like you and be ok with that…
- Understand that people not liking you is not an indication of your self-worth
- Think about what you want out of that meeting or encounter…is it just for fun, then keep it in the state of fun?
- Understand what your feelings are communicating to you-meditation helps with connecting you to your feelings without disruption.
- Understand that sharing with others and being open to listening to them as well helps build a connection
- Exercise regularly and practice good self-care so you can feel good about yourself.
Now you see that feeling anxious, nervous, or worrying before meeting new people makes you feel like something is wrong with you. Feeling and thinking this way only puts you on edge even more, which makes it very difficult to relax in situations that are supposed to be fun and exciting
So, you’ve learned why you can’t relax around new people and part of the reason is, that those feelings and emotions remind you of the past.
We can explore that in the next blog, but in the meantime, If you think these tips mentioned will help you but you also know you won’t do them because you don’t know how to implement these tools on your own, it’s a good idea to get into therapy to work through those barriers. Click the free consult to schedule your free 30 minutes consultation because you are tired of not knowing what to do to help yourself.
