How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety

by Ellen Hendriksen

And now it was confirmed to Moe that his silence was obvious—that he couldn’t simply hide in plain sight.

Ongoing silence weighs a person down like a slowly accumulating pile of bricks in the lap.

Social anxiety is self-consciousness on steroids. First there is a sense of being conspicuous, of sticking out like a sore thumb. There follows an urge to hide, to conceal, sometimes by staying away altogether, sometimes by showing up but remaining silent or staring intently at the floor.

So much of anxiety is learned, which means it can be relearned.

Or, for the 21 percent of capital-S Socially Anxious folks for whom nerves manifest as anger and irritability, impairment means sarcastic comments and critical judgment. It means losing friends and relationships by striking out in anger.

No matter how it manifests, social anxiety holds us back in our work, keeps love and friendship from deepening, and leaves us miserable and lonely.

Now, I will not promise a “new you,” because, believe it or not, there’s no need to change your personality. You just need to see that who you are is already perfectly sufficient.

Fundamentally, social anxiety is seeing our true self in a distorted way and believing the distortion to be the truth.

In short, whether anxiety is genetic is clear as day, but how anxiety is genetic is clear as mud.

But long term, avoidance is disastrous. It is enemy number one of emotional well-being and perpetuates all anxieties, not just social. For social anxiety to become a problem, genetics and learning aren’t enough—the anxiety has to grow and be carefully maintained. Avoidance does just that, and does it perfectly.

Social anxiety isn’t just fear of judgment; it’s fear the judgers are right.

Avoidance is your brain’s equivalent of a fussy mother hen—it means well, but in protecting you from a situation it inadvertently sends the message that you can’t deal. In shielding you from threat, avoidance keeps you from learning “Hey, that wasn’t so bad,” or, “Wait, nothing terrible happened,” and blocks the resulting confidence that comes with succeeding in ever-larger challenges.

To know, deep in your heart, that you are fine just as you are, even in the moments when anxiety might try to convince you otherwise.

You will start off by living the life you want with anxiety—by carrying it along with you. And as you do, surprisingly, the anxiety will ebb away.

Properly pruned, social awareness yields social payoff. But if social awareness grows wild and unchecked, instead of merely being aware, we get hyperaware.

The first thing social anxiety buys is group harmony. We are wired to be aware of others’ judgment of us because just enough social anxiety maintains social cohesion, and a cohesive group that avoids time-and-energy-consuming internal conflict is more nimble and durable than one weighed down by infighting.

The second thing social anxiety buys us is individual security. Because what happens if you’re that asshole? Call it ostracization, exile, banishment:

First, introversion is born, while social anxiety is made.

“Genes, culture, time, and luck make us who we are.”

Remember: genetics isn’t destiny. The brain, with its genetic programming and evolutionary shaping, influences behavior, but it goes both ways: behavior also influences the brain.

When the amygdala sounds the alarm, it’s as if the non-anxious brain dispatches a fire truck to the scene immediately, but the socially anxious brain sends a guy on a bicycle with a bucket of water.

To be stuck in your own world of possible judgments, or stuck in your own head judging yourself, is not fun.

The Critic wants you to do better, to be perfect, so it pushes you to perform while at the same time undermining your faith in your ability.

We think there is something wrong with us and therefore try to conceal it. But importantly, “think” comes with a big asterisk. Why? Even though our perceived flaws feel so real, they are either not true or only true to a degree no one cares about.

Whatever your fear, it boils down to one thing: I am not good enough. And furthermore, everyone will see.

It’s a vicious cycle: by focusing on the stuff we think went wrong, we conclude, as Loren said, we’re not good at this stuff, which just restarts the dread next time around.

Clark and Hinrichsen concluded that the main difference between high and low socially anxious individuals is not the effect of anticipatory processing—that’s the same no matter who you are. The difference is that the socially anxious among us are more likely to engage in it.

“First question: What’s the worst that can happen?”

the mantra of overcoming anxiety is specify, specify, specify. Why? Anxiety is often vague:

At least one of these questions, if not both—“How bad would that really be?” and “What are the odds?”—will take some of the edge off pretty much every socially anxious thought.

last question: “How could you cope?”

To sum up, when your Inner Critic kicks the anxiety into gear, first ask, “What’s the worst that can happen?” Answer as precisely as possible; remember: specify, specify, specify. Then ask: “How bad would that really be?” “What are the odds?” “How could I cope?”

harsh criticism does two things to the first kid: first it shames, which is bad enough, but it also makes her not ever want to try again, which robs her of the opportunity to learn.

“You can’t heal what you can’t feel.” No matter what you choose, simply pay attention, on purpose, without judgment.

Self-compassion sees our inadequacies and failures and not only is cool with them but also provides a safe and caring place for them.

you can handle feeling awkward for a few minutes. If you survived the last few years, you can make some phone calls. It’s okay to feel awkward as long as you keep moving forward.”

Replace and Embrace won’t make your anxiety evaporate, but the questions of Replace will help shrink it and the self-compassion of Embrace will help you feel comforted.

There’s something about approaching someone and the possibility of being rejected that inherently makes you nervous.”

Our brains tell us the worst is possible, but with experience we learn it’s not probable.

Failure to get a yes didn’t mean that he was a failure. It just meant that this time didn’t work out and he could try again.

“If you want to be comfortable talking to strangers,” he said, “the only way to do it is to approach strangers while you’re uncomfortable. You have to earn the comfort through being uncomfortable many, many times.”

If we’re feeling anxious, we put it off. But here’s a secret: this approach is actually backwards. Like Brandon, we’re ready when we’re uncomfortable. Get started and your confidence will catch up.

we can put action before motivation. Just like Brandon, we don’t have to wait until we feel like doing something before we do it. Instead, we start doing it, and the feeling will catch up.

Being brave isn’t not being afraid. Indeed, fear is a prerequisite to bravery. True bravery is being afraid and doing it anyway.

Not only does emotion affect the body; the body also affects emotion.

Even rejection, once experienced, is seldom as bad as we imagine.

What would I be doing if I felt confident?

What would you be doing if anxiety weren’t standing in your way? What do you want to do without overthinking? What would the you-without-fear do?

working hard to keep my anxiety at bay was also keeping others at a distance.

In other words, the participants thought their partners liked them because they did less of the bad stuff, but in reality the partners liked them because they did more of the good stuff. Once all the bandwidth used for rehearsing sentences or managing their appearance was freed up, authentic friendliness—the good stuff—naturally filled in the gaps.