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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