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A collection of questions and sharing by our readership community about a wide variety of aspects of social anxiety. Dive in and receive practical insights and advice.

QUESTION BY:

Anonymous

How Do I Get RID of Social Anxiety When Around a Group of People but Public Speaking?

  • How do I get rid of shyness when it comes to talking to other people and introducing myself to total strangers. I have always been a shy individual when I was growing up, probably 10 times shyer that what I am now or I may be worse now than when I was growing up. Not too sure though. Even though, yes I do have problems with public speaking, in the point that I get sick and light headed and feel like I am going to faint.

Jonathan Responds:

  • You need to gain control of your internal critical script which is sending you all sorts of negative suggestions like “you will screw up”, “people will see who you really are”, you will look stupid”, “you will make a fool of yourself”, etc. Getting “sick and lightheaded” is a combination of your nervous system working overtime concurrent with your repressed and recycling anger, which is being somatized (physically expressed). Usually the problem does get worse with time; hence your statement “I may be worse now”. The most effective way to control “shyness” is to understand that shyness really is social anxiety. When you break this phenomenon down into the specifics of thinking, emotion, behavior, and physiology there is more potential to gain control as opposed to referencing shyness as an abstract personality characteristic. That is one of the reasons that my first book was titled “Beyond Shyness: How to Conquer Social Anxieties”. You do have to gey beyond shyness!
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