How to Overcome Social Anxiety Jordan Peterson
[Music]
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 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 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
hierarchies is the i
pay attention pay attention that’s the
critical issue
that’s why the egyptians worshipped
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 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
you