How to deal with social anxiety?

I have always been uncomfortable in social situations. As a child, I mostly kept to myself. I remember my parents, always trying to encourage me to speak up whenever someone tried talking to me. As I kept growing up through my teenage years, my introversion became significantly etched in my psyche. I did have a few close friends, but I preferred being mostly on my own. Now, I must admit that there are a few perks to being a wallflower, but at times, introverts need to step out of their bubbles to face the real people of the world. This is where social anxiety gets in the way and makes it challenging. Social anxiety is defined as having an irrational fear of being in social situations. People who have social anxiety often have a hard time around people and social gatherings. Parties, concerts and even large family gatherings could be uncomfortable for such people. I too often find myself struggling when due to some rare circumstance, I get invited to a party. Not an expert at small-talk, I often think I will say the wrong thing at the wrong time or to the wrong person. I feel I'll run out of things to say and end up standing there dumbfounded, making a complete embarrassment of myself. Now, I am sure a lot of people with social anxiety have similar thought processes and thinking patterns. After avoiding people for many years, and maybe missing out on a few good opportunities, gradually I started investigating the root cause of my social anxiety and why I feel this way. One thing became instantly clear. My social anxiety stemmed from the fact that I considered the entire world to revolve around me. In retrospect, I realized people rarely think as much about others as they think about themselves. If only I'd realized this sooner, maybe I wouldn't have had such a hard time around people and may have been able to laugh at a joke or two, even if some of them were directed at me. This makes so much sense and at the same time brings so much comfort. Even if you were to do something incredibly embarrassing, no one is going to talk about it after a day or two. We are all self-absorbed beings. We all consider ourselves to be the focal point of our own lives. Other people don't matter, we do. This fundamental truth about human psychology has helped me tremendously not just in overcoming my social anxiety but in many other areas of my life. I am not a party animal yet, but I am much cooler now. 😎

You may like these books if you are on venture to deal with your " Social Anxiety"

Click on cover to buy