Blogging Against Social Anxiety

Have you ever tried keeping a thought diary of all the automatic negative thoughts that run through your mind on a typical day? When you become conscious of the constant stream of negativity that loops through the mind it can be quite a shock. “I really don’t feel like going to work today”. “Boy I hope I don’t get called on to speak at the meeting this morning”. “Why didn’t I say hi to that cute girl? She probably thinks I’m really unfriendly.” “Why didn’t I get up earlier and go to the gym this morning?”

In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle says, “I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people’s thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful”. As Tolle notes, most people live their lives spending most of the time ruminating about events that occurred in the past, or feeling stress and anxiety about events that may or may not happen in the future. In many ways, this is a total waste of mental energy; while we can sometimes learn from the past, it cannot be changed. And the future, Tolle argues, does not really exist. All that exists right now and the only thing we ever have the power to change is the present. This might seem like a fairly banal observation, but it is actually quite profound.

“Always say yes to the present moment,” says Tolle. “What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is?”

Does this mean simply accepting whatever hand you are dealt in life, no matter how unhappy you may now be? No.

“Wherever you are, be there totally,” says Tolle. “If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.”

I think Tolle’s philosophy is very relevant to sufferers of social anxiety. Now, you can spend years analyzing your childhood and trying to figure out how you became the person you are today, or who is to blame for your social phobia. But isn’t this really a total waste of your mental energy? You can also spend hours, days and months reading books and forums about social anxiety and imagining how some time in the future you are going to get over the problem. But this is also an escape from the present moment. How about simply accepting your current life situation for what it is. This doesn’t mean that you are resigning yourself to suffering from SA for the rest of your life. It means that your current situation is what it is, and fighting that reality is only going to bring you frustration and pain. Secondly, to the extent that you can take action to work on the problem, start TODAY. Not tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. Not to get morbid, but you may not even be here next year. Who knows.

“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time,” says Tolle. “If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”