When I talk with people who have social anxiety they often tell me, “Andre, I don’t know what to say. My mind goes blank during conversations. What should I do?” Since this seems to be quite a problem, I’ve decided to record a video that shows you what to do to get rid of this problem.
First of, you need to realize that this happens to everyone and more importantly, you need to realize that it’s not your responsibility to fill in the gaps. Awkward pauses in conversations don’t necessarily need to be filled by you.
You’re not the only one involved in conversation and it takes at least two people to have a conversation (except when you’re talking to yourself). That other person also needs to actively participate and do his or her best to keep the conversation going.
Realizing this should help you feel more at ease during conversations because the pressure to prevent the pauses isn’t just on you anymore.
Why is this so important?
Well, I’ve found out that your mind goes blank during conversations for two reasons. One is that you’re not comfortable around people you’re talking to and the other one is that you simply don’t have anything to say. The good thing is that you can take care of both reasons pretty easily.
There are obviously many reasons how to calm yourself down and get more relaxed around other people.
You could practice a simple breathing technique that I’ve described pretty thoroughly in one of my episodes of Social Anxiety Advice podcast. You can listen to it here:
socialanxietyadvice.com/how-to...
Another thing you could do to calm down is practice a special EFT technique during the moment of anxiety. It will help you relax almost instantly. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to lower the level of anxiety.
Again, you can find out more about this technique by following the link above.
Please understand that practicing these techniques won’t instantly turn you into a super confident person with great social skills.
These techniques are only meant to help you calm down so your brain can start working properly again and you can get the conversation going again.
For long-term results you will have to dig deeper and find out the reasons why you feel uncomfortable around other people in the first place. Then you’ll have to work on eliminating these reasons.
Now, let’s move on to the next reason why your mind goes blank.
It’s hard to be sociable when you have social phobia. It keeps you away from situations that could help you develop your social skills. It keeps you away from living your life fully because it wants to protect you from getting yourself hurt and embarrassed.
Obviously this doesn’t help when you need to talk with other people.
When you have no life it’s hard to be sociable because you have nothing interesting to say. It’s hard to be the life of the party if you’ve got nothing interesting going on in your life.
The solution lies in living a more interesting life.
Find yourself some fascinating or impressive hobbies. This will give you something to talk about.
And more importantly, become interested in other people. Become interested in what they have to say. This way you will eventually develop your social skills and you won’t have to deal with awkward pauses anymore.
If you have any questions about this topic you can leave them in the comments’ section here:
socialanxietyadvice.com/i-dont...
If you would like to know more about overcoming social anxiety disorder and building social skills, feel free to visit my website here:
socialanxietyadvice.com/
Last but not least, you might want to subscribe to my RU-vid channel here and watch more videos I made on how to deal with social anxiety.
/ @andresossi
21 янв 2015
