How to cope with Social Anxiety

I struggled with feelings of social anxiety for most of my young life.

As a kid, I was painfully shy. Whenever I would meet new people, it was hard for me to look them in the eye and introduce myself. Besides feeling uncomfortable, I could sense my parents starting to worry about my lack of confidence in social situations.

As time went by, I started to interpret my parents’ desire for me to be more confident as a personal failing. 

By the time I hit my teens, my shyness escalated into a fear of social situations in general. I dreaded going to parties or being in any scenario with people I didn’t know. 

As an introvert, I always felt awkward, and I struggled to make small talk and let go of my feelings of self-consciousness.

That was when I started to think of myself as an anxious person.

I assumed that anxiety was something that was wrong with me. I also thought it was unique to me. Every time I said “I have anxiety” or “I’m an anxious person,” I was taking ownership of those feelings. “My anxiety” became a bigger and bigger part of my identity.

But then I learned something that changed my relationship with anxiety forever: everyone is anxious to some degree—especially in social settings.

(Social) anxiety is a collective emotion

When I reached my twenties, I started to notice I wasn’t the only one at parties who felt nervous. More often than not, I noticed people who were having trouble engaging with other people, or people who seemed self-conscious and uncomfortable in their own skin.

I realized I’d been underestimating just how much we feel what the people around us are feeling. 

Whether we know it or not, we’re taking in other people’s feelings all the time. As human beings, we’re constantly connecting with one another on an emotional level. 

This explains why it can feel so electrifying to go to a live concert or a major sporting event: you’re not just experiencing your own connection to the event, you’re experiencing the sum total of everyone’s excitement about being there, along with your own. 

Unfortunately, we also absorb negative emotions like anxiety in the same way. The anxiety we’ve been experiencing throughout the pandemic is a case in point. It’s a combination of our individual fears and the collective fears of everyone in our community and around the world. 

So how can we apply our understanding of collective anxiety to ease our feelings of social anxiety?

How to ease social anxiety

Say you’re attending a party with a bunch of strangers. When you acknowledge how anxiety-inducing this scenario can be for most people, you can begin to shift your focus away from yourself and onto the others in the room. 

More often than not, most of them will seem focused on themselves and super self-conscious.

Here’s where you can take things a step further: Whenever you notice someone who looks especially nervous or uncomfortable, try to connect with them in a way that puts them at ease. 

Be curious. Ask questions. Try to figure out what they’re interested in and what you might have in common. What would you want to hear if you were somewhere feeling awkward?

If you’re not sure how to do this, try observing people with good social skills. My friend Zoë, for example, is great at engaging people in conversation. She’s genuine. She’s curious. She asks a lot of questions and listens carefully to people’s responses. She also shares things about herself that relate to what her conversation partners are saying. 

So whenever you find yourself in a situation that stirs up social anxiety, try to remember that anxiety is something we’re all dealing with in one way or another. It’s a natural part of being human.

The more we can recognize anxiety as a collective emotion, the easier it is to detach from the anxiety we might be experiencing as individuals—and practice making meaningful connections with the people around us.

Do you want to learn more about how to deal with big emotions like anxiety? In my book, Life Launch, I write about how to cope with anxiety, using clear, easy-to-apply strategies to identify and turn down the volume on your negative mind. Download a sample chapter here. Bonus: Watch my TEDx talk on anxiety here.