How To Fight Social Anxiety AND WIN Jordan Peterson

let’s say you’re socially anxious

okay so what happens when you’re

socially anxious

you go to a party your heart’s beating

why the party is a monster why because

it’s judging you and it’s judging you

it’s putting you low down the dominance

hierarchy because that’s what a negative

judgment is and that interferes with

your sexual

success and that means that you’re being

harshly evaluated by nature itself

right so you are confronting that the

dragon of chaos when you go into the

social situation and so what do you do

you’re like this right you hunch over

and that’s low dominance i’m no threat

it’s like well that’s not going to get

you very far you know but that’s a

logical thing to do in in the in the

face of a tyrant so i’m no threat you

know you look at the king and you’re

dead i’m no threat i’m hunched over

and then what’s happening internally how

what are people thinking about me what

are people thinking about me am i

looking stupid am i looking foolish geez

i’m awkward i hate being here man i’m

sweating too much it’s all internalized

right it’s all self-focused the the the

eye isn’t work the eye

isn’t working what do you tell people

stop

don’t stop thinking about yourself

because you can’t it’s like don’t think

of a white elephant white elephant white

elephant white elephant you can’t tell

someone to stop thinking about something

because they get caught in a loop what

you do with socially anxious people is

you say

look at other people

look at them

right why because if you look at them

you can tell what they’re thinking

and then you you’re unless you’re unless

you’re terribly socialized and some

people are some people have no social

skills and so the reason they can’t go

to a party is because they don’t even

know how to introduce themselves like

they’re just no one ever taught them how

to behave and so they’re really good

candidates for behavior therapy because

you walk them through the process of how

you actually

manifest the procedures that are

associated with social acceptability but

most people aren’t like that they have

the ability so if they’re really

introverted and high in neuroticism they

can usually talk quite well to someone

one-on-one why because they look at them

well if i look at you it’s another thing

to do if you’re ever speaking to a group

of people never speak to the group of

people that doesn’t exist you talk to

individuals and then they reflect

for you the entire group because they’re

all entrained if you look at one person

they broadcast to you what everyone’s

thinking and you know how to talk to one

person so it’s easy

so as soon as you focus on the person

not you

push your attention outward use your eye

you push your attention outward and you

start watching well then all your

automatic mechanisms kick in and you

stop being awkward because if we’re

talking and i’m looking here

i don’t know what you’re going to do

next and i’m going to put disjunctions

into the like they’re like

bad chords in the melody of our of our

conversation and the reason is i’m not

paying attention

so that’s why the eye is the thing at

the top of the pyramid it’s like the

thing that enables you to win the set of

all possible dominance harkies is the i

pay attention pay attention that’s the

critical issue that’s why the egyptians

worshiped horus that’s why horus was the

thing that rescued osiris from the from

the depths it’s the capacity to pay

attention what do you pay attention to

most

what your right hemisphere signals as

anomalous

it it attracts your attention it’s like

this isn’t going quite right

i’m not looking at that

wrong

that’s what you look at that’s what you

look at what’s not going right because

that’s see that’s the terrible monster

that might eat you but it’s also the

place you get all the information

so

that’s why it’s useful to have

discussions with your enemies

because they will tell you things you do

not know and that’s such a great thing

because if you don’t know them well

you’re not very smart are you you know

there may be a time when you go

somewhere that’s the thing you need to

know

and maybe your enemy will tell you why

you’re such a fool you know and a bunch

of other things that aren’t true too

but even one thing that’s accurate it’s

like yeah thanks very much man maybe

i’ll do some work on that and i won’t

have to carry that forward

so and then that’s part of the reason

again why the terrible predator it’s

always the terrible predator that has

the gold it’s like it’s the person who

delivers the message you do not want to

hear

so it’s rough it’s rough but it doesn’t

matter

life is rough to move forward you know i

mean i’ve dealt with lots of people who

have anxiety disorders you know and one

thing about people who have anxiety

disorders is they are not mysterious to

me

i understand

it’s no problem for me to understand why

people have anxiety disorders or why

they’re depressed or why they have

substance use problems the mystery to me

is always why people don’t have all of

those things at once because everybody

has a reason to be anxious in fact we

have the ultimate reason to be anxious

because we know that we’re vulnerable

and we know that we’re going to die and

how you cannot be anxious under those

circumstances is a great mystery it’s a

massive mystery and the same thing

applies with regards to depression

and then the same thing applies to some

degree with regards to drug and alcohol

abuse as i said last week there’s plenty

of reasons to drown your consciousness

in alcohol that’s for sure we could

refer to the aforementioned anxiety and

depression not least

and so

and the and the sorts of drugs that

people are prone to take are chemicals

that take the affective edge off the

tragedy of life

so

so

back to back to the issue of of fear i

mean

abraham is self-conscious that’s what

this commentary says but the thing is is

he moves forward despite that he’s

self-conscious and he knows the danger

but he moves forward despite that and

that’s actually the appropriate response

in the face of actual non-naive

understanding of what constitutes life

like if you’re naive and you move

forward it’s like well what the hell do

you know you know there’s no courage in

naivety because you don’t know what

there is to

stop you you don’t know what dangers you

might apprehend but to be aware of

what it is that your problem is so to be

alert existentially let’s say or to be

fully self-conscious means that you’re

perfectly aware of your limitations and

how you might be hurt

and then to make the decision to move

forward into the unknown and the land of

the stranger anyways that’s the i would

say that’s one of the secrets to a good

life and i can say that really without

fear of contradiction i would i would

say because the clinical literature on

this is very very very clear

what you do with people who are afraid

and and to some degree depressed but

certainly anxious is you lay out what

what they’re anxious about first of all

in detail what is it that you’re afraid

of what might happen and then you

decompose it into small problems

hypothetically manageable problems and

then you have the person expose

themselves to the thing that they’re

afraid of and what happens isn’t that

they get less afraid that isn’t what the

clinical literature indicates exactly

what happens instead is they get braver

and that’s not the same thing right

because if you get less afraid it’s like

well the world isn’t as dangerous as i

thought it was you know silly me if you

get braver that’s not what happens what

happens is yeah the damn world’s just as

dangerous as i thought or maybe it’s

even more dangerous than i thought but

it turns out that there’s something in

me that responds to taking that on as a

voluntary challenge and grows and

thrives as a consequence and there’s no

doubt about this even the

psychophysiological findings are quite

clear if you

if you

can if you

impose a stressor on two groups of

people and on one group the stressor is

imposed involuntarily and on the other

group the stressor is picked up

voluntarily the people who pick up the

stressor voluntary voluntarily use a

whole different psychophysiological

system to deal with it they use the

system that’s associated with approach

and challenge and not the system that’s

associated with defensive aggression and

withdrawal and the system that is

associated with challenges much more

associated with positive emotion and

much less associated with negative

emotion it’s also much less hard on you

because the the defensive posturing

system the prey animal system man when

that thing kicks in it’s all systems are

go for you you know

the gas is pushed down to the or the

pedals push down to the metal and the

brakes are on you’re using future

resources that you could be storing for

future time right now in the present to

ready yourself for emergency so

there’s there’s there’s nothing simple

or trivial at all about the idea of

being called to move forthrightly

forward into the strange and the unknown

and there’s a real adventure that’s

associated with that right so that’s an

exciting thing which is part of the

reason why people travel and then also

to see yourself as the sort of creature

that can do that is willing to do that

on a habitual basis is also the right

kind of tonic for i hate this word for

your self-esteem you know because the

self-esteem has nothing to do with

feeling good about yourself as i already

mentioned there isn’t necessarily reason

why a priori you should just feel good

about yourself but if you can view

yourself acting in a courageous and

forthright manner and encountering the

world and trying to improve your lot

and and and taking risks you know in a

non-naive way well then you have

something that you can comfort yourself

with at night when you’re wondering what

the whole damn point of is

of your futile and miserable life

and so and that’s necessary because

it’s often the case that you wake up at

four in the morning or at least

sometimes the case that you wake up at

four in the morning when things haven’t

been going that well and wonder just

what the hell the point is of your

futile and miserable life you have to

have something real to set against that

it can’t be just rationalizations about

how you know you’re a valuable person

among others even though that’s true

that’s not good enough you need

something that’s more realistic to set a

against that and observing courage in

yourself is definitely one of the things

that that that can help you sleep

soundly at night when when things are

destabilized a little bit around you

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