Social Anxiety: How to Get Over Fear of Rejection

Do you ever feel like you're all tied up in knots because you're anxious about being rejected or disliked for who you are? If you struggle with social anxiety, it's probably no surprise that fear of rejection is one of the biggest things people worry about.

Transcript

Do you ever feel like you’re all tied up in knots because you’re anxious about being rejected or disliked for who you are? If you struggle with social anxiety, it’s probably no surprise that fear of rejection is one of the biggest things people worry about. In this video I’ll be touching on why that is and what you can do to feel  more at ease when anxiety comes a-knockin’. Keep watching to learn all about it!

 Hi folks, I’m Will Bratt from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives. We’re therapists who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give practical ideas and tips to address your problems and make your life happier – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

 As you may know from your own lived experience, social anxiety is often a strong emotional response to anticipating rejection, exclusion, judgment, or just not fitting in with others. Now, not everyone who shares these fears experiences them for all the same reasons, but it really is uncanny that so many of us can relate to these feelings in some way!

 No matter the reason behind why you feel anxious about being disliked or rejected, you probably don’t appreciate the way these fears can shrink your life. Social anxiety can make it really hard to venture out into new social contexts, get to know new people, and let new people get to know you. So let’s take a closer look at social anxiety, fear of rejection, and what you can do about it!

 Isn’t it interesting how human beings can find it so unnerving to imagine being disliked or rejected? I mean, it’s not like our lives are necessarily at stake. But still we really struggle to feel comfortable with that possibility. I touch on this in our video “How Most Anxiety is Social Anxiety”, and I explain how this is because belonging goes hand in hand with dignity. I definitely recommend giving that a watch after you’re finished with this one.

 But yeah, even though we don’t have to depend on each other in the modern world the way our ancestors did, belonging is still vital for our sense of wellbeing. So it makes sense why so many of us have a hard time with this particular kind of social anxiety.

 Now, even though it makes a lot of sense to feel anxious about rejection, exclusion, and not fitting in, it can end up being very restrictive for us to take those fears as gospel without challenging them. In other words, just because something is scary, doesn’t mean we should rule it out and avoid it forever. Although the prospect of things going badly can be terribly unnerving, it can also be rewarding and enlivening to challenge our social fears with courage.

 So here are some ways of taking the wind out of social anxiety’s sails:

 1.     Ask yourself “So what?”

 The first way to disrupt social anxiety around the fear of rejection is to ask yourself in a very kind and honest way, “So what?” What if you did experience rejection, judgment, or some other negative social response. What would that mean for you? What would the consequence be for your life? What’s the best way you imagine yourself or someone else dealing with that kind of experience?

I offer questions like these to help you explore for yourself what it is about the possibility of rejection or not fitting in that feels as scary as it does. While there’s a reason for everything, not everything needs to stay the way it is. In this case, I have a hunch that even though it might feel really scary to be rejected or excluded, your fears probably don’t give you enough credit for your ability to deal with challenges like these.

2.    Consider the Cost/Benefit

 That leads us to the second way of keeping social anxiety and fear of rejection from constraining your life: considering the cost and benefit of putting yourself out there in spite of your fears, versus adhering to social anxiety’s cautions.

 What do you imagine would help or hurt your life more? Having your fears come true and experiencing rejection, or staying quiet or withdrawn to keep the rejection from happening? I think it’s important to acknowledge here that every situation is different, and so there’s no universally right answer to this question. I also can’t tell you what’s right or wrong for you, but I can say that for myself, strictly adhering to my fears of judgment, rejection, and exclusion usually costs me more than it benefits me. I’ve developed some wonderful relationships with people who I initially felt scared or intimidated to talk to, in part because I took the risk of approaching them.

3. Building confidence

This connects naturally to the third way of reducing your fear of rejection: building confidence in the possibility of things going well.

In our video “Is Social Anxiety Really About Low Self-Esteem?”, I acknowledge the reality that a lot of people develop fears and expectations around receiving negative responses from others because they’ve actually had a number of those experiences in the past. In cases like this, social anxiety can actually be seen as resistance to receiving rejection or mistreatment in the future. But I also see the dilemma around not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to have an expansive social life.

When we experience really hurtful rejections, it can make it hard to go out on a limb and put ourselves in those situations that we feel anxious about. But trying anyway and experiencing success over time helps us build confidence in the possibility that things could actually go well.

I encourage you to be patient with yourself here. Negative experiences tend to carry a lot more weight than positive ones, and so it could take at least a handful of positive experiences in a row to help build that confidence and diminish some of your fears of rejection or exclusion.

4.     See it as an opportunity

Building confidence flows nicely into the fourth way of getting over your fear of rejection: seeing your fear and anxiety as an opportunity to build strength in yourself.

It’s easy to see anxiety as a barrier, because fear makes it hard to take action toward the things you’re afraid of. And while that may be true, it also presents an opportunity to get better at something you struggle with.

If you notice yourself feeling anxious about a social situation you’re anticipating, you could ask yourself a question like, “How might this be an opportunity to build strength or skills?”. You could also ask yourself, “What skills or abilities might facing this fear help me increase?”

Seeing your fear of rejection as an opportunity could help anxious moments feel less like threats and more like potential chances to grow.

These are 4 strategies that can help you reduce your social anxiety and fear of rejection. Now I’d like to turn it over to you! If you have other ways of dealing with social anxiety around the fear of rejection, let us know in the comment section. You can also let us know if you have other helpful ways of dealing with those fears. The Heart & Oak community is all about sharing what helps, and you never know who your ideas and experiences might benefit!

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life!

Social Anxiety: Is it Really about Low Self-Esteem?

If you or someone you care about struggles with social anxiety, you’ve probably heard the idea that it’s caused by having low self-esteem. In this video Will Bratt explains how that perspective misses the mark, and offers some other ways of looking at it that can help you deal with your own social anxiety!

Transcript

If you or someone you care about struggles with social anxiety, you’ve probably heard the idea that it’s caused by having low self-esteem. In this video I explain how that perspective misses the mark, and offer some other ways of looking at it that can help you deal with your own social anxiety. Keep watching to learn more!

Hi folks, I’m Will Bratt from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives. We’re therapists who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give practical ideas and tips to address your problems and make your life happier – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

There’s a really popular idea out there that the reason people feel anxious in social situations is because they have low self-esteem. This perspective assumes that because you fear rejection, exclusion, judgment, and other negative social responses, you must not feel good enough about yourself, because if you did, those things wouldn’t matter to you.

 As a therapist, I talk to a lot of folks about social anxiety, and its relationship to self-esteem almost always comes up. But when we take a close look at that perspective, its faults start to become clear. In this video I share how the idea that social anxiety is caused by low self-esteem doesn’t hold much water, as well as some more context-based observations that better explain social anxiety.

 Let’s start with what social anxiety is, and how most people experience it.

As an emotion, anxiety is often about anticipation. In general, it is the emotional response to anticipated negative experiences. When we throw the word “social” in front of “anxiety”, we’re talking about the anticipation of negative social responses or experiences. I talk more about this in our video “How to Address the Fears Behind Social Anxiety”, which you should check out after this one.

If you’ve ever dealt with social anxiety, you’ve probably experienced it as fears and worries around anticipated judgments, rejection, exclusion, or even as a lack of safety in groups or crowded spaces. Common responses to these fears include avoidance of social circumstances, being quiet and careful with what you say, verbal diarrhea – where you fill the air with words and have a hard time reigning it in, and even feeling physically ill with nausea, vomiting, rapid heart rate, and fast, shallow breathing. 

With all that said, people often assume that if only you had more self-esteem, confidence, or thought more highly of yourself, you wouldn’t have these feelings in the first place. Let me explain why this assumption is generally not all that useful.

1.     It’s an overgeneralization

First, and perhaps foremost, it’s often a hasty overgeneralization that your feelings of anxiety around social situations are caused by having low self-esteem. The mental health field is full of hasty assumptions and generalizations just like this, which fail to take the context of your life and lived experience into account. Assumptions like these jump the gun and provide easy answers that lack real insight into your actual lived experience.

What I mean here is that human lives are complex, and our responses, like fear and anxiety, are typically not black and white issues. They’re nuanced and intricate, and they often come to be for a host of intersecting reasons.

When we make the assumption that someone’s social anxiety must be attributed to their low self-esteem, we fail to take these nuances into account and run the risk of choosing easy answers over potentially more accurate ones.

2.     It assumes social fears are necessarily connected to self-esteem

The second problem with the idea that social anxiety is totally due to low self-esteem is that it is an absolute and therefore potentially ill-fitting assumption. When we think that way, we put all our eggs in that one basket, and close the door on more contextually correct possibilities.

As a therapist, I’ve had way more conversations about self-esteem and social anxiety than I could possibly count. I can say that it is simply untrue that all people who fear receiving negative social responses like rejection, exclusion, or judgment, do so because they don’t like themselves enough. In fact, more often than not, the fact that someone wants to avoid negative interpersonal experiences is more of an indicator that they esteem themselves quite highly.

If that last point has you scratching you head, let me explain. If someone fears judgment, exclusion, or rejection, that tells me they care about how they’re treated. Caring about yourself in this way goes hand in hand with how you value or esteem yourself. So if you read between the lines, the fact that someone is anxious about being on the receiving end of mistreatment is more a sign that they esteem themselves highly than that they don’t value themselves much at all.

If you truly didn’t care about something, you wouldn’t feel anxious about how other people treat that thing. So when someone feels anxious about how they might be treated by others, that can be an indicator that they do indeed care about themselves – and caring about yourself goes hand in hand with self-esteem.

3.     Past Experiences

The third way this notion misses the mark is that it doesn’t account for people’s past experiences.

Everything makes sense in context, and people’s past experiences are a totally relevant part of the context around present circumstances. We can’t divorce ourselves from the past, or live like goldfish with no long-term memory. When things happen, we learn from them, and adjust our expectations and actions accordingly.

For example, we might assume that a 21-year-old who was bullied throughout high school, and who has social anxiety around meeting new people, has those fears because the bullying caused them to have low self-esteem, which causes them to feel socially anxious. But what if, having lived through that bullying, they developed a radar for mistreatment, which their social anxiety is a testament to? So instead of the anxiety being caused by not liking themselves, it could actually be attributed to learning that sometimes people treat others in really unkind ways, and their anxiety is part of their resistance to that happening further.

These are three ways in which social anxiety can be about so much more than low self-esteem. Now we’d like you to chime in with your thoughts and perspectives! Your ideas could be really helpful to the Heart & Oak community! Aside from it being all about low self-esteem, what are other ways you make sense of your own social anxiety? Are there some points from this video that ring true for you, or maybe some that we didn’t touch on at all? Leave your response in the comment section!

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life.

Social Anxiety: How to Address Your Fears

Social anxiety can feel like living inside a shrinking room, where the walls get closer and the space inside gets tighter. In this video, Will Bratt shares insights into what social anxiety is, why it's so common, and tangible actions you can take to address some common fears behind your own social anxiety.

Transcript

Social anxiety can feel like living inside a shrinking room, where the walls get closer and the space inside gets tighter. In this video, I share insights into what social anxiety is, why it’s so common, and tangible actions you can take to address some common fears behind your own social anxiety.

Hi folks, I’m Will Bratt from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives.

We’re therapists who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give practical ideas and tips to address your problems and make your life happier – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop! 

Social anxiety is kind of a catch-all term that several different kinds of worry, fear, and anxiety relate to. Generally speaking, social anxiety is about anticipating negative social interactions with others. For some it revolves around groups of new people, while for others it’s large crowds. It can also relate to some one-on-one relationships, or to situations where you have a responsibility to others, like at a job.

In this video, I’ll be covering 4 of the most common fears and worries that people relate to social anxiety, along with concrete things you can do to address those fears at their root. The 4 types of social anxiety that I’ll be touching on are:

1.     Not fitting in within small groups

2.     Being judged for a feature of your identity or an aspect of your experience

3.     Being seen or positioned as deficient, inadequate, or incompetent

4.     Feeling unsafe in groups or crowds of people

First, let’s talk about the nuts and bolts of social anxiety.

People respond to the situations they associate with social anxiety in many different ways. The most recognizable response associated with anxiety in general is to avoid the situations that we feel anxious in. Anyone who has ever felt anxious can likely attest to the fact that this makes total sense, as avoidance helps us mitigate undesirable experiences.

Other ways of resisting the negative outcomes people associate with social anxiety can include staying quiet or censoring ourselves in groups, chattering nervously and filling the space with words, or carefully curating what we say in order to illicit positive responses from other people. These ultimately all serve the important purpose of avoiding negative responses or encouraging positive ones.

The downside, of course, is that we don’t feel free to be ourselves in these situations. If you experience a lot of social anxiety, you probably feel like your life is made smaller by your fears, and you may long to feel freer and at ease in these social situations.

So let’s get in to 4 of the most common types of social anxiety and what you can do to address them.

1.      Not Fitting In

Just about everyone can relate to the fear that they might stick out like a sore thumb in social groups. This makes sense, because, as I laid out in our video “How Most Anxiety is Social Anxiety”, belonging matters for our sense of dignity – and that’s important! I also go into more detail about this in a post on the Heart & Oak blog, which you can find a link to in the description below.

When it comes to social anxiety around not fitting in, there is most often one of two outcomes that people are most fearful of: being rejected and being excluded.

Rejection is rarely, if ever, kind. It often comes with humiliation and alienation, which can make the experience all the more difficult, or even traumatic.

Exclusion, on the other hand, can leave us feeling unwanted or discarded, with an implicit message that we aren’t good enough to be included. So it makes sense to strive to keep these things from happening!

When it comes to actually taking the wind out of anxiety’s sails around our fears of exclusion or rejection, there are a few tangible actions that can help:

One is to go out on a limb and actually acknowledge that you feel anxious in those particular moments. Being the clever person you are, you probably already have a good read on people and circumstances that are safe to do that in. If you’re meeting a new group for the first time and they seem like kind, accepting people, simply acknowledging that you feel anxious when you meet new people can take the pressure to act like you feel at ease or “normal” off your shoulders. Otherwise, that pressure can just amplify the anxiety that you already feel in those social interactions.

Some other more private or subtle strategies in these situations include:

• Focusing on breathing slowly and intentionally if it feels like your breath is shallow and quick. Also, softening your abdomen and opening your shoulders while you breathe into your tummy can support more of a sense of being in control of your heart rate, breathing, perspiration, and other related aspects of your physical body.

• You can also talk yourself through the fear of being excluded or rejected

  • If your fears come true, how can you deal with it?

  • What power or capacity do you have to handle negative social responses from others?

  • How have you dealt with them in the past?

  • Who do you know who deals with negative responses well, and how do you imagine they do it 

Exclusion and rejection can hurt, but there will always be people out there who care about and admire you for the person you are.

2.     Fear of judgment

Now on to the second common fear related to social anxiety: fears of being judged

Anxiety around the fear of judgment is similar to the fear of not fitting in, but different in some distinct ways. While they both relate to not belonging, the fear behind this kind of social anxiety is more about receiving a negative social response about a particular aspect of your identity or experience. This can look like fears of judgment for how you look, your sexuality or gender identity, your socioeconomic status, how you speak, your job or level of education, or stigmatized experiences you’ve had, such as surviving abuse.

I know it goes without saying, but judgment sucks. It reduces us to a diminished essence far below who we actually are, and if it’s for something about ourselves that we really can’t help, it can really hurt. The hurt we experience for being judged is also very contextual. It probably doesn’t hurt to the same degree if it’s cast by a total stranger, versus a close friend, versus someone we don’t really know but admire, versus a family member. My point is, it’s about who we anticipate doing the judging and how sensitive we are about being judged for that particular thing.

If you have anxieties about judgment, questions like these could be useful in helping address them:

• What are the things you’re most wary of being judged for?

• What is it about those particular things that makes them especially sensitive areas?

• What do the people who care most about you appreciate most about who you are?

  • Do they know about the areas you’re sensitive about? If they do, why do you suppose they’re still in the picture?

  • How do you imagine they’d respond if they knew you were judged for what you’re sensitive about?

• What do you imagine someone else’s judgment toward you would say about them?

  • Would their judgment speak more to fundamental problems with you, or to issues they have?

• If you were to be judged for something you’re sensitive about, who would you go to for support? How would that help your sense of value or dignity?

Reflecting on questions like these can be helpful because they can take some of the power away from things we’re afraid to be judged for. That may not change the reality that being judged can really hurt, but it helps us remember that we have what it takes to deal with it.

3.     Being seen or positioned as deficient, inadequate, or incompetent

The third common fear behind social anxiety relates to being deemed inadequate, deficient, or incompetent. This is similar to the anxiety around judgment described, but it has more to do with measuring up and being seen as “good enough”.

Being “good enough” is more or less synonymous with “acceptable”, and acceptance and belonging go hand-in-hand. Do you notice a pattern here? This just reaffirms the point that social anxiety has so much to do with belonging, and belonging has so much to do with dignity!

If you struggle to feel like you measure up in the company of others, here are some questions that could help you navigate those issues:

• If not “measuring up” feels like a scary or uncomfortable position to be in, what do you imagine to be the consequence?

  • What would it mean to you if that consequence was to come true?

• In your mind, where do the standards for “measuring up” come from?

• Is there anyone around whom it really doesn’t matter if they think you’re good enough or not?

  • Who does it feel it matters most around?

• Who accepts you for the person you are, regardless of how good you are at certain things?

• If there was a critic you knew you absolutely could not appeal to, how would you accept their negative view of you?

Just like being judged, being seen as inadequate or “not measuring up” is a total affront to your dignity, but you can’t win ‘em all. Finding ways to accept this and appreciate who you are for all the ways you DO shine may be a more useful way to look at yourself.

4.     Social anxiety in crowded spaces

The fourth and final common fear behind social anxiety that I’ll be touching on in this video has to do with being in crowded spaces.

There are plenty of reasons you might feel a sense of anxiety or panic in crowded areas. Often, this relates back to adverse or traumatic experiences people have had, which undermine their sense of safety in the community. That aside, you can probably relate to having an increased sense of tension in busy, crowded spaces, which is contrasted by feeling more relaxed and at ease in less densely-packed areas. No matter how you cut it, we tend to respond to busy spaces with more arousal.

Social anxiety in the context of big crowds is actually quite unique from the previous three kinds of fears. What differentiates it from the others is the focus on physical safety above belonging and dignity. When people feel anxious at the prospect of being in a large crowd of people, they tend to be less concerned with being judged or excluded, and more worried that something untoward them might happen.

If someone has experienced violence, or is fearful of encountering a person or situation that would be scary or uncomfortable for them, the solution isn’t as simple as saying “Just don’t worry about it! I’m sure you’ll be fine!”. If you think about it, it can be a lot harder to watch your back when there are a ton of other bodies milling around you. Sometimes there’s good sense behind our sensitivities and aversions!

If you struggle with anxiety around crowds or big groups of people, these questions could help you explore that in a constructive way:

• What makes crowded spaces different than those with fewer people when it comes to your anxiety level?

• What are you most wary of having happen when you’re in a crowded place?

• What precautions do you take to create safety when you’re entering crowded spaces?

• If you could imagine something happening that would take all your worries about this away, what would that be?

• How have you created safety in the past when you’ve felt fearful or unsafe going into crowded spaces?

  • When you reflect on that, what does that tell you about your capacity to handle hard situations?

When it comes to taking care of social anxiety around crowded spaces, the emphasis is generally more on bolstering your sense of safety so that you trust you’ll be taken care of in the ways you need to be. 

Being aware of your anxieties, fears, and worries can help you navigate them with intention. When you have a more robust understanding of the fears behind your social anxiety, it’s easier to negotiate with them and live in more preferred and expansive ways.

So, what kinds of social situations do you find you feel most anxious in, and why? Do you have strategies for navigating your own feelings of anxiety in social situations? If you have some thoughts or strategies to share, or any questions about the things I talked about in this video that the Heart & Oak community could help with, let us know in the comments below.

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life.

How Most Anxiety is Social Anxiety

There is one thing that almost everyone who feels anxiety can relate to. In this video, Will Bratt explains how and why most anxiety is social in nature, and why that matters when it comes to feeling more at ease in anxious moments.

Transcript

There is one common theme that almost everyone who feels anxiety can relate to. In this video I explain how and why most anxiety is social in nature, and why that matters when it comes to feeling more at ease in anxious moments. If you deal with anxiety, this video is for you. Keep watching!

Hi folks, I’m Will Bratt from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives. We’re Victoria BC therapists who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give practical ideas and tips to make your life happier and more fulfilling – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

 As a therapist, I have more conversations about anxiety than any other problem people experience. Because I’ve had so many of these conversations, I can’t help but ask, “What’s similar from person to person?”, “How are these experiences the same – even though they have their own unique differences?”

 I had an “Aha!” moment one day when I realized that so many people’s experiences of anxiety often tie back to relationships and social connections.

 Through helping people address their diverse experiences of anxiety, I’ve seen how realizing the specific social concerns at the heart of your anxiety can help you feel more empowered to take action in ways that make a big difference.

 So let’s dive in to how that works.

Anxiety is typically described as the emotional response to anticipated negative events or experiences. It draws our attention to what could happen, in the interest of avoiding negative outcomes. In this way, even if we don’t think it’s helpful, anxiety is primarily concerned with our safety.

 Now, we usually think of safety in terms of our physical wellbeing, but as relational creatures, our social wellbeing is also a valid need to consider. While we may not need the acceptance of others in order to survive physically, things like dignity, esteem, value, and worth, carry a lot of weight in the social world. If you’re skeptical, just ask anyone who has thought about ending their life after struggling against bullying, abuse, or social exclusion and rejection. Belonging matters and isolation can kill.

The importance of belonging is clear when we look at social anxiety. Most people who identify as having social anxiety describe it as fears and worries around rejection, exclusion, and humiliation – the other side of the coin from belonging and acceptance. But how does this common social denominator relate to other forms of anxiety? It’s really all about context and taking a deeper look at why we feel anxious about the things we do. 

It can be useful to start with a question like “What particular fears or concerns does your anxiety relate to the most?” The more specific you can be, the easier it is to really understand what it’s about. I’ve also linked a to a post from the Heart & Oak blog that goes into more detail, and includes other questions that can help you clarify the target of your anxiety with even more depth and accuracy.

Let me share a few examples to illustrate what I mean:

I had a recent session with someone who was feeling anxious and unsafe in a big new city. On the surface, it might have looked like he was experiencing agoraphobia, fearing that others might do him harm. But when we really got to the heart of his anxiety, he was ultimately afraid that some outside force would do him or his partner harm, and disrupt or undermine their relationship, which he cherished deeply.

I had another client who described feeling anxious about his health, worrying that he might get really sick with something like cancer. It would have been short sighted for me to assume that his anxiety was all about his health and mortality, as the more we talked about it, the clearer it became that he was ultimately afraid of losing the chance to get to know his family on a deeper level, and cultivate more fulfilling relationships with them.

Just to share one more example, I worked with a young woman who was terribly anxious about a lot of things, including driving, her health, and unexpected catastrophes. As we put her anxiety in context, she made it nice and clear that she had been through a lot of loss in her short life, and she was understandably afraid of losing her closest, most supportive and stable relation, which was her partner.

All three of these examples illustrate how anxieties that could have easily been misunderstood as very individual concerns were really and truly relational.

So what does all this mean? How can it be helpful and empowering being able to find the relational concerns at the heart of your anxiety? It’s all about making the context around your anxiety more tangible, and therefore easier to work with in effective ways. 

In all three of the examples I mentioned before, those people were able to directly address their relational concerns and issues behind their anxieties, and eventually feel way more at ease. Their anxieties went from being bad enough to require professional help, to way, way more manageable.

There are reasons behind everything, and anxiety is no exception to that. Recognizing the concerns that inform your own anxiety can give you something tangible to work with, which can ultimately help you feel more empowered and capable of managing your anxiety at its root.

Because anxiety is such a common human experience, it would be so helpful if you could leave a comment below about how you’ve addressed concerns that underlie your experiences of anxiety. Have you found success in reducing your anxiety by addressing troubling relationship situations? Whether you have, or if you have any questions about the social side of anxiety that the Heart & Oak community could help with, let us know in the comments below.

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life!

4 Ways to Address the Fears Behind Social Anxiety

How Common is Social Anxiety?

74% of people fear public speaking more than death.

Let that sink in for a minute.

The fact that just shy of ¾ of the population fears public speaking above anything else is very telling of our collective sense of what it means to be in the spotlight. It speaks to the reality that social interaction (and especially being the centre of attention) is a risky proposition. It is the awareness of that risk that lies at the heart of social anxiety.

Regardless of whether you see social anxiety as a clinical problem or a common challenge of simply living in this world, this post provides insights into what social anxiety is and tangible actions you can take to address some common fears behind it.

What is Social Anxiety?

What are we really talking about when we say “social anxiety”? Generally speaking, it’s a term that describes fears around having negative social interactions with others. For some, social anxiety revolves around groups of new people, while for others it’s large crowds. It can also pertain to certain one-on-one relationships, or tie in to situations in which you have responsibility to others (like at a job).

4 common fears or worries that people relate to social anxiety include:

1. Not fitting in within small groups

2. Being judged for a feature of your identity or an aspect of your experience

3. Being seen or positioned as deficient, inadequate, or incompetent

4. Feeling unsafe in groups or crowds of people

With all that said, it’s important to acknowledge that the diversity of experiences that could be classified as social anxiety highlight a shortcoming of diagnosis in general: focusing on the experience of the fear, rather than on the specific contexts that support particular fears in existing in the first place.

As a counsellor, I notice that people find it far more helpful to explore and understand the context around their own unique experience of social anxiety, rather than trying to address it more broadly with catch-all tools and skills. That’s why I provide some guiding questions in this post to help you explore and address your own particular social anxieties.

Responses and Resistance to Socially Anxious Circumstances

Responses to the situations we associate with social anxiety can look many different ways. Perhaps the most recognizable response associated with anxiety in general is to avoid the situations in which it is most prominent. As an act of resistance, this makes sense, as it serves to mitigate undesirable experiences.

Other ways of resisting the negative responses and outcomes people associate with social anxiety can include staying quiet or censoring ourselves in groups, chattering nervously and filling the space with words, or carefully curating what we say in order to illicit positive responses. These ultimately all serve the important purpose of mitigating negative responses or encouraging positive ones.

A lot of people who describe themselves as struggling with social anxiety take issue with the constraints they feel around social situations. They long to feel free and at ease, and instead feel as though their life is made smaller by their fears. I believe that feelings always make sense within their given contexts, and so it’s fair to say that social anxiety is both an understandable response to interpersonal experiences, and something that would be relieving to feel less of.

For this reason, it can be helpful to address the specific fears behind your own unique social anxieties.

Addressing Social Anxiety Around Not Fitting In

Just about everyone can relate to the fear that they might stick out like a sore thumb when entering a new social group for the first time. This makes sense, because as I laid out in my post “Addressing the Social Roots of Your Anxiety”, belonging matters for our sense of dignity – and that’s important!

When it comes to social anxiety around not fitting in, there is most often one of two outcomes that people are most fearful of: being rejected or being excluded.

Both rejection and exclusion are understandably adverse possibilities that make sense to be avoided. Rejection is rarely, if ever, kind. It often comes with humiliation and alienation, which can make the experience all the more difficult, or even traumatic. Exclusion, on the other hand, can leave us feeling unwanted or discarded, with an implicit message that we aren’t good enough to be included.

When it comes to actually taking the wind out of anxiety’s sails around our fears of exclusion or rejection, there are a few tangible actions that can help. One is to go out on a limb and actually acknowledge that you feel anxious in those particular moments. As a clever social being, you probably already have a good read on people and circumstances that are safe to do that in. If you’re meeting a new group for the first time and they seem like kind, accepting people, simply acknowledging that you feel anxious when you meet new people can take the pressure to act like you feel at ease (or “normal”) off your shoulders. Otherwise, that pressure can just amplify the anxiety that you already feel in risky social interactions.

Some other more private or subtle strategies in these situations include:

• Focusing on breathing slowly and intentionally if it feels like your breath is shallow and quick

  • Also, softening your abdomen and opening your shoulders while you breathe into your tummy can support more of a sense of being in control of your body (heart rate, breathing, perspiration, etc.)

• Talking yourself through the fear of being excluded or rejected: If your fears come true, how can you deal with it?

  • What power or capacity do you have to handle negative social responses?

  • How have you dealt with them in the past?

  • Who do you know who deals with negative responses well, and how do you imagine they do it

  • What do you know about yourself that is at odds with the anxiety’s messages?

Taking Care of Fears of Judgment

Anxiety around the fear of judgment is similar to the fear of not fitting in, but different in some distinct ways. While they both relate to not belonging, the fear behind this kind of social anxiety is more about receiving a negative social response about a particular aspect of your identity or experience. This can look like fears of judgment for how you look, your sexuality or gender identity, your socioeconomic status, how you speak, your job or level of education, or stigmatized experiences you’ve had (such as abuse).

I know it goes without saying, but judgment sucks. It reduces us to a diminished essence far below who we actually are, and if it’s for something about ourselves that we really can’t help, it can really hurt. The hurt we experience for being judged is also very contextual. It probably doesn’t hurt to the same degree if it’s cast by a total stranger, versus a close friend, versus someone we don’t really know but admire, versus a family member.

The bottom line is that it is an affront to our dignity that erodes our sense of safety in social situations.

If you have anxieties about judgment, questions like these could be useful in helping address them:

• What are the things you’re wariest of being judged for?

• What is it about those particular things that makes them especially sensitive areas?

• What do the people who care most about you appreciate most about who you are?

• Do they know about the areas you’re sensitive about? If they do, why do you suppose they’re still in the picture?

• How do you imagine they’d respond if they knew you were judged for what you’re sensitive about?

• What do you imagine someone else’s judgment toward you would say about them?

• Would their judgment speak more to fundamental problems with you, or to issues they have?

• If you were to be judged for something you’re sensitive about, who would you go to for support? How would that help your sense of value or dignity?

Dealing with Being Seen as Inadequate, Deficient, or Incompetent

The fear of being deemed inadequate, deficient, or incompetent is similar to the anxiety around judgment described above. The discerning factor, however, is that this has more to do with measuring up and being “good enough”.

Being “good enough” is more or less synonymous with “acceptable”, and acceptance and belonging go hand-in-hand. Do you notice a pattern here? This just reaffirms the point that social anxiety has so much to do with belonging, and belonging has so much to do with dignity!

If you stop to think of the very notion of being “good enough”, there is an inherent nod to comparison and competition. This too says a lot about our culture. We are subjected to evaluation across so many of systems and spheres that we go through and belong to in life that it just makes sense for most people to have a radar for the extent to which they measure up with others.

If you struggle to feel like you measure up in the company of others, questions like these could help you navigate those issues:

• If not “measuring up” feels like a scary or uncomfortable position to be in, what do you imagine to be the consequence?

• What would it mean to you if that consequence was to come true?

• In your mind, where do the standards for “measuring up” come from?

• Is there anyone around whom it really doesn’t matter if they think you’re good enough or not?

• Who does it feel it matters most around?

• Who accepts you for the person you are, regardless of how proficient you are at certain things?

• If there was a critic you knew you absolutely could not appeal to, how would you accept their negative appraisal of you?

Social Anxiety in Crowded Spaces

There are plenty of reasons one might feel a sense of anxiety or panic in large crowded areas. Often, this relates back to adverse or traumatic experiences people have had, which undermine their sense of safety in the community. That aside, you can probably relate to having an increased sense of tension in busy, crowded spaces, which is contrasted by feeling more relaxed and at ease in less densely-packed areas. No matter how you cut it, we tend to respond to busy spaces with more arousal than in their chiller counterparts.

Social anxiety in the context of big crowds is actually quite unique from the previous three varieties discussed above. What differentiates it from the others is the focus on physical safety above belonging and dignity. When people feel anxious at the prospect of being in a large crowd of people, they tend to be less concerned with being judged or excluded, and more worried that something untoward them might happen.

If someone has experienced violence, or is fearful of encountering a person or situation that would be scary or uncomfortable for them, the solution isn’t as simple as saying “Just don’t worry about it! I’m sure you’ll be fine!”. I generally see folks who are vigilant about the dangers of crowded spaces as having had the unfortunate experience of being awakened to the reality that bad things can indeed happen. On top of that, if you think about it, it can be a lot harder to watch your back when there are a ton of other bodies milling around you. Sometimes there’s good sense behind our sensitivities and aversions.

If you struggle with anxiety around crowds or big groups of people, these questions could help you explore that:

• What makes crowded spaces different than those with fewer people when it comes to your anxiety level?

• What are you most wary of having happen when you’re in a crowded place?

• What precautions do you take to create safety when you’re entering crowded spaces?

• If you could imagine something happening that would take all your worries about this away, what would that be?

• How have you created safety in the past when you’ve felt fearful or unsafe going into crowded spaces?

• When you reflect on that, what does that tell you about your capacity to handle hard situations?

Knowing Your Social Anxieties

Being aware of your anxieties, fears, and worries can help you navigate them with intention. This can be hard to do when we’re just rolling with our anxious impulses. When you have a more robust understanding of the fears behind your social anxiety, it’s easier to negotiate with them and live in more preferred and expansive ways.

What kinds of social situations do you find you feel most anxious in, and why?

Do you have strategies for navigating your own feelings of anxiety in social situations?

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Addressing the Social Roots of Your Anxiety

Most Anxiety is Social Anxiety

Everyone feel anxious.

Not everyone feels anxious in the exact same settings and circumstances, but absolutely everyone can identify with those awful feelings of dread, unrest, worry, and panic in some way, shape, or form.

With the seemingly infinite number of specific anxieties that human beings could have in today’s world, social anxiety is one that a huge number of people describe themselves as experiencing. You probably know social anxiety as the quick heart rate and sweaty palms that go along with feeling out of place in social situations. People also describe it as fearful thoughts around judgment, rejection, exclusion, and being socially incompetent in interactions with others.

As a counsellor in Victoria BC, I have more conversations about anxiety than any other concern people bring in to therapy. Through these interesting and diverse conversations, I’ve come to notice a common theme: the anxiety that people consider to be more “generalized”, or even anxieties about specific worries like health or death, almost always relate back to relationships with other people too.

In this post I explain how and why most anxiety is, at the end of the day, social in nature, and how identifying that for yourself can help you feel more at ease in anxious moments.

The Purpose Behind Anxiety

Like most aspects of human experiences, anxiety is one of those things that everyone can identify with on some level, and which everyone experiences somewhat differently from person to person. So, while taking these differences into account, anxiety is typically described as the emotional response to anticipated adverse events, experiences, or outcomes.

As a responsive emotion, anxiety draws our attention to what could happen, in the interest of avoiding or mitigating negative experiences. In this way, even if we don’t often experience it as helpful, anxiety is primarily concerned with our safety.

Anxiety as a Social Phenomenon

If anxiety is mostly about anticipating negative experiences or outcomes in the interest of safety, why do so many people experience social anxiety? I mean, it’s not like rejection, exclusion, or judgment ever really hurt anyone, right?

The reality is, belonging does matter. Despite the age-old rhetoric that celebrates the “lone wolf” and staunch individualism, we are far more interdependent than independent.

Even if you think about it on a purely evolutionary/biological level, human beings have needed each other for survival since always. Of course, humans in the 21st century are different in some very distinct ways than our predecessors from ages past, but the importance of belonging is very much alive and well in our hearts and minds today.

Belonging and Social Anxiety

The importance of belonging is key to understanding why people experience social anxiety. While we (urban adults in particular) may not need the acceptance of the group in order to survive predatory animals or weather brutal storms, cultural constructs like dignity, esteem, value, and worth, carry significant weight in the social world. If you’re skeptical, just ask anyone who has thought about ending their life after struggling against bullying, abuse, or social exclusion/rejection. Belonging is life-affirming and alienation and oppression can kill.

Anxiety’s Social Link

We know that social anxiety is defined by fears and worries around belonging and acceptance. But how does this common social denominator relate to other forms of anxiety?

I’ll illustrate this with an example:

When I first met with Paul, a 30-year-old man who grew up in a small community in BC, he described himself as struggling with anxiety, with a particular focus on his health. He explained that he recently learned through a medical exam that there was a mass in his lung, and that he was understandably afraid it might be cancer. I asked questions to draw out more of a sense of the meaning behind his fear – what it would mean to him if he was struck with a potentially fatal illness. Through his responses to my questions, he explained that because of the hard life he’s lived, he’s kept close relations at arm’s length. As many people can relate to, he felt fearful about the prospect of being vulnerable and opening up about himself and his own struggles to people who really matter to him. While more superficially, his anxiety was about getting sick and dying, at the heart of the matter was a fear of losing the opportunity to cultivate closer, more intimate relationships with his family. This realization opened the door for him to take care of those relationships in more direct and tangible ways.

Through Paul’s example you can see how what sounded at first like a very personal and private worry was actually relational in nature at its core. It’s easy to see anxieties like Paul’s through the more common individualistic lens, but when we really start getting curious and putting anxiety in context, we can see that there is a crucial social aspect more often than not.

Why It’s Helpful Identifying the Social Side of Anxieties

As is clear in Paul’s example above, recognizing the social aspects of our anxieties gives us something concrete to work with. So often the assumption is that we need skills or tools to manage anxiety, when in fact action can be taken to address the anxiety-provoking situation at its core.

In Paul’s case, by recognizing that his anxiety was really based on the fear of losing the opportunity to get closer with the important people in his life, he was able to take the action necessary to address that concern.

I think it’s also worth noting that anxiety has a way of making it difficult to facilitate the process of coming to these realizations on our own. We can get so wrapped up in worry that we think in very circular ways, making it hard to move forward. This is where talking to a therapist can really help. Counselling for anxiety can not only help you identify and practice the skills and tools to ease anxiety in anxious moments, but also to see the tangible factors that could make all the difference if they were to be addressed.

Identifying the Social Side of Your Anxiety

Whether or not you work with a counsellor to understand the context around your own anxiety, having questions to explore and make sense of the social side of your anxiety can make a big difference.

You can use questions like these to do that work yourself:

• If your anxiety could speak for itself, what fears or worries would it express?

  • What relationships in your life relate most closely to those fears or worries?

• What would it mean to you if those fears or worries were to come true? What regrets would you have?

• What fears or worries have made it hard to take action to resolve the anxiety?

  • Are there particular social responses you fear you might receive?

• Who else does this issue matter to? What is their relationship to the situation?

  • How does your anxiety relate to your relationship with them?

• If you knew you could do something that would make everything better, even if you’re afraid to do that thing right now, what would that be?

  • What has made it hard to take that action up until now?

Addressing Anxiety Through the Broader Social Context

The problems we call “social anxiety” are quite obviously social in nature, but that doesn’t mean that other kinds of anxiety are not. The process of exploring and understanding the social context around your anxiety can open new doors to addressing issues on a more real and tangible level. In this way, addressing your anxiety through the broader social context is empowering and leads to more sustainable resolution across time.

Are there certain social relationships that you notice you feel more anxious about than others?

How do you take hard but important steps toward resolving social worries?

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What I Wish I Knew About Handling Fears, Doubts, and Worries

“It’s too hard!”

“I’m scared I can’t do it!”

“I don’t have what it takes, so why bother trying?”

These are familiar thoughts that I have had throughout my life, whenever I have dreamed of taking on a big change or aspiration.

Sometimes they show up as quiet, pesky thoughts that I can easily swat away with my sparkly magic wand of positivity. Other times they’re really REALLY loud, ominous, and devastatingly convincing. When that’s been the case, I’ve had to summon all my courage to keep from getting stuck in a rut.

Perhaps you can relate. These kinds of thoughts stem from our bigger, deeper feelings of fear, doubt, and worry. They are skilled at creating a state of confusion and distracting us from how we want to be feeling: confident, bold, and focused on bringing our desires to life.

In this post I offer my hard earned knowledge on how to keep fears, doubts, and worries from stopping you along the path toward bringing your desires to life.

Sitting With the Discomfort of your Fears

Let’s be real: we want things in life to come easy to us, and we don’t want to experience the discomfort that our fears, doubts, and worries bring. This is both perfectly natural, and often times counter-productive.

Fear is naturally something to be avoided.  That’s how it works!  It tells you, “that thing might not be safe”, and you, as the smart person you are, do what you can to keep bad things from happening.

You’ve also probably experienced how it can be counter-productive to listen to your fears all the time. While they largely have your best interests in mind, they can also show up when you have an opportunity to challenge yourself and grow. They deter you from taking risks that could actually bring you closer to bringing your desires to life. If your fears, doubts, and worries were to have things their way all the time, your life would be stagnant, in a constant state of maintaining the status quo.

When it comes to actually sitting with the discomfort of your fears, doubts, and worries, a common and understandable response is to find distraction and avoid actions that align with taking risks. There have been a number of years where this was a primary focus of mine. I’ve always been a big dreamer, but it’s taken me a lot of personal work to actually put one foot in front of the other and take concrete steps toward my aspirations.

My ways of avoiding action were sneaky. I mean, sure, I would do things that you too might notice yourself doing, like binging on TV shows and scrolling endlessly on my phone, but I would also do what looked like meaningful work, minus the follow through.

I would devote hours and hours of time to planning, looking meticulously at the how and what that would lead to the results I was seeking. But when those results didn’t appear after a week of work, I would hear those discouraging and destabilizing whispers of my fears, doubts, and worries, and ultimately get off track. I repeated this process again, and again, and again.

In retrospect, I believe a big part of the problem for me was that I didn’t pay attention and engage much with these feelings. I had deemed them enemy #1 to be fought off or to surrender to (depending on my energy level that day). I hadn’t taken the time to ask what those fears and doubts really had to say about what I was doing. What were they based on, and why were they showing up when they were?

Although I’m not a big proponent of psychological diagnosis, reflecting on this tedious process reminds me of Einstein’s saying, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.

Through the personal work I’ve done on these issues, I’ve learned that acknowledging your fears calls them out and allows you to assess their validity. It can also help you in determining whether or not these fears and doubts are useful to listen to, or if they're worth disrupting.

Disrupting Your Fears, Doubts, and Worries

Challenging your fears, doubts, and worries might feel like the last thing you want to do, preferring instead to distract yourself and pretend they’re not there. But they’re showing up for a reason, and facing them can be empowering.

Here are some questions that can help you along that path:

• Where do you think those fears and worries came from? What experiences do they remind you of

• Who else that you know of has similar fears, doubts, or worries? What experiences do you share with them?

• If your fears were to help you avoid experiencing something negative, what might that be? Why does it feel important to avoid having that kind of experience?

• When those fears are present, how do you respond? What do you feel most inclined to do/avoid doing in those moments?

• Are there actions you’ve considered taking but felt too afraid? If so, what were they and how did you decide against taking them?

By reflecting on questions like these, you can get a clearer sense of where your fears, doubts, and worries are coming from. This can help you take a more compassionate stance with yourself, while also considering how you want to engage with those concerns. Who knows, perhaps there’s something worthwhile in their message, but you can’t know until you really understand where that message is coming from, and how it makes sense as a response to your lived experience.

Calling Out the “Buts”

Sometimes it can be hard to pinpoint a worry or fear. This is when it can be useful to pay attention to the language you use. What words come to mind when you think about taking action and you feel constrained by fears?

One word that aligns very closely with the language of worry or fear is “but”. Many of us use that word often and take it for granted, but how and when we use it is a very good indicator of aversions we have. These might sound like,

• “I would like to be healthier BUT…”

• “I would like to be in a loving partnership BUT…"

• “I want more friends BUT…”

The statements that follow the “buts” can take on many different forms, such as,

• “…I don’t have the ability or capacity to make it happen”

• “…there are forces outside of my control that will get in the way.”

• “…there is something wrong with me that makes this impossible.”

What follows the “buts…” for you? What fears, worries, or concerns are they based on?

Is your desire for change greater than the level of fear you experience? Are there ways to gently challenge the fear in safe and manageable ways?

Putting “Buts” in Context

Up until recently I believed that there was something fundamentally wrong with me that would prevent me from having a body that looked the way I wanted it to. I longed to be fit and healthy, to let go of extra body fat, and to feel fantastic in my body. But I doubted that this could be possible. Maybe my metabolism was broken, or perhaps I didn’t have the ability to be consistent enough. Those were a couple of “buts” that got in my way.

When I got down to doing this work myself, I recognized that my “buts” were supported by faulty evidence based on the prior attempts I had made to create change in my body (all of which had fallen short). When I finally addressed the ideas, I took a close, honest look at my past efforts by asking questions like, “What had I done”, “How long did I try, and what were the results?”, and “What got in the way of me continuing to try?”

It soon became clear to me that the approach I was taking did not support me in being able to maintain a consistent effort. I tried too much at once, and restricted my eating so greatly that my body rebelled with cravings that no amount of will power could battle. I learned that I needed a realistic, achievable approach that allowed me to be consistent day in and day out until I reached my goals. I saw that the problem wasn’t some inherent shortcoming within myself or my body, but in the strategies I tried.

I also gathered logical evidence to counter the fear that there is something outside of my control preventing me from having the body I want. I googled the hell out of what could truly prevent this desire from coming to life and learned that it would be highly unlikely. There are factors that can slow down the process, such as my hypothyroidism, but it is still possible for my body to change.

This is when logic can come in handy. When you think about your desire, what do you think needs to happen for it to come into fruition? Break it down in detail:

• What knowledge do you need?

• What action do you need to take? What are all the small steps you can think of?

• Who could help?

• What skills might you need?

• What might you need to learn or practice?

Working Through Your Worries, Fears, and Doubts

Once you’re able to identify what your worries, fears, and doubts are, and you feel fluent in noticing the “buts” that get in the way, you can start creating a case against them.

Questions like these can help you through that process:

• Who do you think believes in you the most? What have they observed about you that supports their perspective of you? What evidence would they give you to support you in believing in your abilities to achieve what’s important to you?

• When assessing beliefs, ask yourself how you know that belief to be true? What evidence is there to back up this belief? What choice do you have in holding that belief? When was it more or less true for you? Who else is it true for? Who is it not true for? How do you know?

• What are some beliefs that have changed throughout your life? What did you once believe was impossible, that you now believe is possible? How did that change occur?

• If you believe that it is impossible to change in the ways you long to, what would have to be different for the change to occur? What could others do to make it easier or harder for you?

• What evidence do you have of your personal success in other areas? What challenges have you overcome throughout your life? What universal challenges have you faced, and learned through trial and error to overcome?

• Critically assess your beliefs – why do you believe in this? What evidence do you have in its truth? Why do you want to believe this?

• Who can you invite to be a cheerleader when doubt and worry come into the picture?

Moving Forward From Fear, Doubt, and Worry

Nearly everyone struggles to take action toward meaningful goals at some point in their lives. Fears, doubts, and worries are generally the common denominators across these difficult times. While they are understandable responses to our lived experiences, sometimes they do their jobs too well, and we end up sacrificing movement for safety. If you take the time and really get to understand where your fears, doubts, and worries come from, you can then respond with more intention, and ultimately take the wind out of their sails.

How do you deal with fears, doubts, and worries in your life?

What helps you take risks to challenge fears, doubts, and worries?

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Meet the Counsellor: Laura Brown

Anxiety, worry, and fear are an interesting kettle of fish.  As a therapist, I spend several hours of my week talking to folks just like you about such things.

Many common themes run through the diverse stories of anxiety that I help people explore.  A big one is that folks feel isolated, alienated, and alone in their relationships with anxiety...which makes their anxiety even worse!

This post - my very first blog post under Heart & Oak Therapy - is an intentional challenge to anxiety on two important levels:

First, it is a direct challenge to my own anxieties and fears around expressing myself in a public forum.  I have thought about blogging for a long while, but have always felt afraid of putting myself out there.

Second, by acknowledging in this very public way that I have felt anxious expressing myself to the world, I am challenging the idea that you are alone in your feelings of anxiety, worry, and fear.  From here on, my commitment to blogging is an expression of solidarity with all people who experience anxiety.

I am standing with those who wish to take action in any way, but feel stifled by fear.

About This Blogger

So who is this quirky counsellor writing at your from across the internet? When I really think about it, I guess I'm a whole bunch of things. Just like you, there are many parts that make up my identity.

I'll start with the light and fluffy stuff.

I have a deep love for all things cute, sweet, and pretty. This is probably why I'm obsessed with my cats, Roxy and Ernie (not to mention cats in my neighbourhood, and cats on the Internet...don't even get me started on kittens!)

I am a highly visual person, and I like to think of myself as creative.  Awe heck, there I go minimizing my talents - a classic hallmark of anxiety showing up.

Let me try that again: I am a creative person!  In another life I would have been on stage acting or performing in some way. And if I'm totally honest, I am still wishing that an opportunity will somehow fall into my lap to be on Saturday Night Live!

Most psychologists would diagnose me with a reality television addiction. I like to tell myself it's research into the human psyche, human relationships, and a critical exploration of our dominant culture.

Fun, love, and happiness are three primary driving forces in my life. I am currently at a place where I am privileged to see the silver lining in most things, have fun even in serious moments, and feel love and compassion for those I see as acting in hateful or hurtful ways. It hasn't always been that way for me, but this is a testament to the fact that things can get better when we work on them.

My Therapeutic Journey

For the sake of transparency, I want to let you know that for a long period of my life (a good 15 years or so), I struggled to hold onto happiness for any sustained stretch of time. Some would (and did) diagnose me with having depression, anxiety, and an eating disorder.

After working tirelessly on myself for years through a diverse range of therapies and reading a library worth of self-help books, I have finally come to recognize that the problem isn't me, and it never really was.

I do not have any mental illnesses, I am not broken, I am not crazy, I am not a depressed individual, or an anxious individual, or a disordered person - statements that can reduce us to an essence and ignore exceptional qualities that don't fit those labels.

I do not define myself or others in these terms because I no longer believe that most people are sick in the head (mainstream psychology would have us thinking otherwise).

Instead, I believe that the culture and world we live can be a really challenging place for a of a lot of people, and most people are doing the best that they can to respond to the adversity in their lives.

I now believe that instead of having a psychological disorder called depression, I was legitimately sad that I felt like an outsider and felt I didn't belong to a group of loving, caring peers.  My sadness was an expression of profound dissatisfaction.

Instead of having an illness called anxiety, I was legitimately worried about being able to take care of myself and being independent after the security offered to me from my parents.

Instead of having a disorder called bulimia, I found a way to soothe my worries and sadness with food while avoiding gaining weight, and allowing myself to better fit society's ideal standards of female beauty.

Having had these experiences in life, it makes sense that I chose the profession I'm in now, because I get it.

I can relate to a lot of the feelings and challenges that the folks I work with want to talk about. And my hope is to have useful conversations that help people to experience life in ways that feel better, however that may look for them.

How I Became a Therapist

My first dream was to become a politician or international lawyer in hopes of changing the world for the better. (Ok, ok, so my true first dream was to be an academy award winning movie star...) However, in my learnings I came to realize that I might have to sell my soul to be able to get anywhere in my career. Upon realizing this, I started to think about what I really enjoyed doing, and it came to me that I loved talking with people and offering them some sort of help and comfort. I also thought that it might be somewhat in line with my big headed idea that I could somehow change the world.

So off I went to the psychology department and enrolled myself in class after class that studied various mental health and behavioural conditions that people struggle with. Multiple choice exam after exam tested my knowledge on what conditions were genetic and which were environmental (Let me save you some time and money: most studies suggest it's 50/50). I was fascinated by all of the so-called symptoms that people were afflicted with, and secretly diagnosed family members and friends with various conditions. I was confident that I could "fix" myself and the other folks who fell outside of the bell curve.

Soon enough I was ready to embark on my journey to learn the ins and outs of counselling: the tool I would use to fix all of these "sick" people. Little did I know that I would come to realize that all of my "expert" knowledge of mental illness would stand in stark contrast to the new insights and perspectives that I was offered. A short summary of these insights include:

• The parallel qualities shared between colonialism and psychology;
• People at all times act in ways to preserve their safety and dignity in response to acts of oppression against them;
• The ways in which people respond to challenging experiences can sometimes look like symptoms of mental health diagnoses, and make a lot of sense when exploring the context of people's lives;
• The things that other people say and do after we have challenging experiences plays a role in how we might respond to such experiences.

Given where I am at in my life now, I work hard not to define myself as an expert on other people's life experiences. I kindly correct my mother when she refers to me as a psychologist (she means well). I like to think of myself as someone who is striving for social justice, and I hope to provide the most useful, helpful, and dignifying service to the people I work for directly, and for my community overall. For people who need an ally, I work hard to help them feel heard, supported, accepted, and strive for our conversations to hold a fine balance between being serious and light-hearted (or even fun).

I am seriously passionate about people experiencing great happiness, acceptance, love and satisfaction in their relationships with their bodies or to intimate partners. For me, this means being a bit of a detective and learning the ins and outs of these relationships, and working with people to make sense out of how things came to be the way they are. From this point, I believe that space opens up for a change in perspective or behaviour that aligns with people's initial goals before seeking therapy.

How Can I Help You?

How will you know if I am going to be a good fit as a counsellor for you? Well, I can tell you I'm your gal if:

• You're comfortable with a light-hearted approach to therapy;

• You want to feel heard and have your feelings and experiences validated;

• You want to reach new understandings of your problems and experiences;

• You're looking for someone you can be real with, and who will be real with you.

I love hear from new people, and would be thrilled if you think it might be helpful to drop me a line. I love answering questions and having rich conversations, so don't feel shy about getting in touch.

Have something to say? Leave a comment below, or shoot me an email!

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If you'd like to talk more about how I can help you