How is anxiety in a social situation, not useful/silly?

Say you're at a party with people you don't know.

I use to suffer anxiety when speaking in the public and a range of bodily changes occurred which had a negative impact

Heart pounding, higher blood pressure and dry mouth all this impacted my outward composure which was one of nervousness an instinctive response based on fear, fight or flight. This limited my ability to interact with other people in an intelligent discussion which was a requirement of my job.
This was also disastrous socially as I would be withdrawn and hide in the corner at a party or social event
Practicing mediation had a huge impact on my response to these situations especially when the energy opened around my heart, throat and third eye chakra.

Anxiety is a great opportunity to practice HAMIETMOBA or vipassana and one where positive results are quickly observed.

A great place to start observing is around you dantain or even higher in the stomach area. The stomach would tighten like a coiled spring waiting to trigger. Have you noticed this?

I have no problem with public speaking these days and this would be an observable behavior change (related to the other thread on Alexithymia: Absence of Feelings or Blindness to Feelings)

cheers
Jeff

Hey Jason,

the question how social anxiety is not useful is probably in itself.... not useful.
You will not be able to answer it unless you determine what it is that constitutes this anxiety. Why does it arise and what are the beliefs connected to it.

This is actually a pretty well understood problem and there´s a ton of helpful literature about it which can be a basis to select the beliefs that are part of 'you' and accordingly apply the silly or sensible method to those.
(e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Panic-Power-Techniques-Anxieties-Conquer/dp/0060927585/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288814825&sr=1-1)

Even just reading the background of this disorder and how it works solved quite a few (the most prevalent) problems for me.

Just copied a few typical beliefs from a website I found (http://www.ptypes.com/avoidantpd.html#beliefs):

• I am socially inept and socially undesirable in work or social situations.
• Other people are potentially critical, indifferent, demeaning, or rejecting.
• I cannot tolerate unpleasant feelings.
• If people get close to me, they will discover the "real" me and reject me.
• Being exposed as inferior or inadequate will be intolerable.
• I should avoid unpleasant situations at all costs.
• If I feel or think something unpleasant, I should try to wipe it out or distract myself for example, think of something else, have a drink, take a drug, or watch television.
• I should avoid situations in which I attract attention, or I should be as inconspicuous as possible.
• Unpleasant feelings will escalate and get out of control.
• If others criticize me, they must be right.
• It is better not to do anything than to try something that might fail.
• If I don't think about a problem, I don't have to do anything about it.
• Any signs of tension in a relationship indicate the relationship has gone bad; therefore, I should cut it off.
• If I ignore a problem, it will go away.

Remember that these are often times unconscious beliefs, so in order to evaluate if you 'own' one of them, it´s probably more useful to check if your everyday reality lines up with it.

So social anxiety is not useful because it deosn't help achieve what you're trying to do?

If I'm already trying to ascertain silly or sensible, aren't I already in the middle of applying HAIETMOBA?

Is HAIETMOBA primarily an awareness method, or is it an awareness method plus ascertaining silly or sensible?

None of the beliefs listed are useful, but if I had the above belief, how would it be silly?

Funny that just reading those beliefs helps some people. I've been working on this for many years, trying to investigate beliefs and apply HAIETMOBA but I still have crippling social anxiety in every single social situation.

This belief is just the beginning. In order to dissolve it and see it for what it is, you need to go deeper.

What would happen if people rejected you?

Hmmm... They could stop initiating conversations. Not be enthused about talking with me at all. End conversations quickly. Cancel outings without telling me. Call me names. Get new friends and not invite me out.

I guess those things could happen.

Yeah, it's a particularly difficult problem to have.

What´s 'bad' about that? Can you see the emotional judgment about it?

If the above things happened, I would probably think, 'I'm an idiot'. 'Story of my life'. 'No one likes me'. I suppose I can see the emotional judgement, but it's more like being stuck in it.

What´s bad about noone liking you?

Can you see the pattern of this process? You navigate from one belief to the next underlying it until you get to the root and have explored every bit of it.

To quote Vineeto:


When you are asking those questions, it´s - in my experience - helpful to actually really ASK them to yourself in a sense of genuine curiosity/interest ("Hmmm, I wonder what´s bad about that?"). Take your time and let things come up on their own. This is very different from our usual quick intellectual discernment ("Well, of course it´s this and that") and has more of an experiental, discovering character. It´s harder to do in the beginning and as usual gets easier with practice.

What I've noticed is that Richard's description of the method emphasises noticing the triggers and getting back to feeling good as soon as possible, and Peter's/Vineeto's writing emphasises what you just said, i.e. a massive investigation into every trigger, belief, and feeling.

Yep and Richard´s way didn´t work too well for me (yet). I think it´s a question of where you are in the process. The more you have uncovered, the easier it get´s and at some point it actually may just be a quick evaluation like "yeah, that belief is silly".
I´d be interested if someone further along the path or actually free can confirm that.

I kind of understand how the investigating works now. Thanks very much for your help Martin.

If anyone has any more insight on Richard's method, and whether a person who doesn't remember a PCE can do it, that would be great.

Jason

Try to maximise felicitous feelings (happy bright) and try to catch the instant anxiety interrupts your attention (movement of focus to another object). At this moment observe any bodily changes which accompany (is the) this attention wave (tightening of the stomach area, tightening of the throat). This is all the self inaction, this is conscious experience both reflexive and reflective. Dig deep into these areas of physical and emotional responses. Investigate how these changes occur. Get back to being happy, bright asap.

There is no investigation of beliefs in your advice. Is this specifically for this particular problem, or all of them?

Hi Jason,

You will find that it is a response to your beliefs causing the attention wave. As you dig deep you will become aware of a process that was an unconscious response. You will find that each choice made is influenced by a belief. Your physical response (anxiety) will be because of the belief that you will do something badly or will not be liked (both fear and desire).

You will find that your very self - feeling of being will be a response to a belief. I am my feelings my feelings are me. Your self is the attention wave, is the conscious response to a deeply held belief, is the belief.

By investigating you start to redirect energy that was anxiety, or was a belief back into felicitous feelings and the more this happens the more your self heads towards abeyance until finally a PCE.

Will this still cause a PCE if I do this except I can only get back to feeling good when the trigger is gone?

The more you investigate how the more you will understand the process and the more you get back to felicitous feelings (feeling happy) as soon as you are aware of a change the more likelihood of a PCE occurring.

This flow chart Tarin created helped my practice http://i43.tinypic.com/34owzld.jpg

thanks
Jeff

Sounds like something I can do, and easy to understand. Thanks very much for your advice Jeff.

Hi Jeff, isn´t this what Kenneth refers to as direct mode practice? Edit: In retrospect no, probably isn´t too similar.
Why do you prefer this process of just attending to the physical representations of emotions instead of their content/meaning?
I´ve tried that in the past and although I think I do experience what you´re describing I had the sense that this was only a temporary relief from the emotion and didn´t prevent it from reoccuring in the future as its trigger wasn´t eliminated.

Emotions have a physical and mental component.

There appears to be a thinking self (content) and a feeling self (energetic) these a both the self but what makes you conscious of these is the minds ability to bend back on itself. The feeling self at its most basic is the feeling of being and the focus of this is consciousness. It is action that fuels this process and at it source is the instinctual passions. By maximizing felicitous feelings you still the response which takes fuel out action which feeds the self and the self goes into abeyance and PCE occurs. By investigating you get insight into this process.


To start with work on maximizing felicitous feelings until a PCE occurs. If you are not happy get back to happy as soon as possible.. Then work on what is interrupting the PCE to maximize the time in PCE. This is where looking into the physical response gives insight, discover the source of the attention wave that interrupts the PCE. This algorithm of maximizing felicitous feelings and maximizing time in PCE works all the way through to your final goal.




Your correct it is only temporary until the trigger is eliminated, you have to investigate what interrupts your PCE, you will find that instinctive response triggers the change in attention.

Here's my short list:
1) It's not appropriate to the situation (there isn't actually anything to be afraid of)
2) It's uncomfortable
3) It inhibits one's ability to interact with others (through tense breathing, hazy thoughts, etc.)
4) It often makes other people feel anxious or uncomfortable as well
5) It's harmful to your physical body (tension is known to cause all sorts of health problems)
6) It may cause one to perform silly actions (such as saying something silly, etc.)
7) It's based on false and imaginary beliefs about what is actually going on. (ie. there is some danger or something at risk)
8) It can be harmful to others (for example by projecting on to others that they are dangerous, etc.)
9) It does nothing to solve the problem of anxiety within the human condition which is so prevalent in our society and the cause of so much sorrow for so many people.
Edit: (one more)... 10) It's a party for god's sake! Is that any way to celebrate?


Another question to ask: How is it useful? Is there anything about it that is useful?

Edit 2: I think the above list pretty much hold true for any emotion you could investigate, or just for the plain silliness of getting emotional at all. Fortunately, this makes the whole process much easier, because you don't have to investigate the silliness each time of each trigger, you can just accept that emotional instinctual responses are silly and outdated human software, and then you can get back to the business at hand - being happy and harmless! (and enjoying the party)

Being liked by others is extremely important for mental health. It's the foundation for all success and happiness in life.

No point aiming for spiritual enlightenment without first succeeding at life's most basic aspects.

You can be liked by those close to you and be socially anxious in new situations. I guess liking oneself is what is important to mental health, and actualism seems to help with that a bit.

Our feeling of being separate and need to belong come from the same source. We have evolved with a herd instinct, our survival dependent on the family unit and safety in numbers. The desire to be liked and accepted by the group can also produce fear of rejection.

Sometimes the unconscious reflex action that occurs in the primitive part of the brain can result in the excessive pouring of chemicals into our body. Conscious of the body physically reacting to these chemicals, the mind perceives these sensation patterns as an emotion, these emotions have a mental component generating conditioned thoughts, causing the body to react again to the new the flow of emotional thoughts and new energy feeding the process.

These feelings are interpreted as ‘my’ feeling and this instinctual response is "me" at my core. "I am" anxious, apprehensive or shy and timid and the cause of sorrow and malice.

What do you think is going on in the minds and bodies of the other people around you at a social gathering. They are born with the same instinctive program. It looks like they are all having fun. Look as if its the first time, observe their reactions.

The only way to be in charge of a situation is to be in charge of your "self". First off you can be perfectly happy without an item, a person or a situation. No situation, person or item outside of you has the power to make you happy or unhappy. If you are not happy get back to being happy. If you perceive something that may makes you feel insecure (past or future) attend to this moment. Break the feedback loop before it gets out of control.

When the "who" I feel I am is temporally gone, the world is a safe place leaving you free to interact.

Edit (Our feeling of being separate is also the source of the need to belong. to Our feeling of being separate and need to belong come from the same source.)

just a side note here (not directly related to the topic of the thread but directly related to the root of its understanding): the feeling of being separate is not the source of the need to belong; the source of the need to belong is the instinctual passions. as it is (the activity of) those passions which, in a self-reflexively aware human, give rise to to the feeling of being separate, then it can more accurately be said that it is the instinctual need to belong which gives rise to the feeling of being separate (and the instinctual need to fear which gives rise to the feeling of being vulnerable, and the instinctual need to aggress which gives rise to the feeling of being offended, etc).

the relevance of making this distinction lies in the understanding it affords of how neither 'i' nor 'my feelings' are to blame for the cause of my condition; 'i' am not to blame because 'i' was literally born this way. yet, 'i' am also the key to undoing this condition.. thus, an investigation into what 'i' am and what 'my feelings' are, here and now, is what will reveal the way to become free of this condition.

what is essentially required to make this investigation is sincerity.. a sincerity so direct that is not merely felt but been; that is, 'i' do not simply feel sincere (or have sincerity), 'i' am sincerity. to be sincerity is to be enabled to find 'myself' both liking and likeable.

and (to bring the discussion back to the topic of the thread), finding 'myself' both liking and likeable solves the problem of social anxiety thoroughly.

tarin

So is social anxiety a problem, or is the problem belief? Or perhaps it's just shoddy thinking?

Perhaps it is worth pointing out that just about all in the list are fairly good examples of totalizing generalizations that confuse different levels of abstraction, and can give a distorted view when forced onto the world. It's the type of thinking, involving words such as All, Every, Always, I, Is and the more subtle Only and Just, that become more common during depression, which often follows a period of anxiety.

I would suggest that excising such beliefs has mainly a palliative effect if it leaves the foundations for constructing them intact.

" this anxiety. Why does it arise and what are the beliefs connected to it"

This reminds me of Adyashanti's 'humanity's dirty little secret", (that when I look inside, I'm not there). Consider how many of the list are solutions to that little problem, ones that we prefer and cling on to, rather than a problem in themselves.

For the AF'ers, is it possible for anxiety to arise as a tension between the instinctual passions and the organism's growing awareness of their (redundant) nature? (In a similar way that one might originally have anxiously (or passionately?) flirted with the borders of no-self land.)

As always your input and guidance is much appreciated. Rereading the sentence I see your point although I was trying to relate they have a common source it doesn't read that way.

"and (to bring the discussion back to the topic of the thread), finding 'myself' both liking and likeable solves the problem of social anxiety thoroughly." - yes



thank you
Jeff

The other day I was driving to meet someone new and my heart was beating strongly. I felt kind of sick getting ready to leave the house. I attended to the moment. It got to the point where it was pretty much just my heart thumping along. There was some nervousness too, and I guess that was making my heart beat the way it did, but maybe I didn't pay enough attention to this nervousness? It pretty much stayed with me until I met the person. On the way home, all the nervousness and sickness was gone.

How do I make this work better than a desensitisation process? I didn't try to get back to feeling good, I just felt myself being nervous. Can you feel good and be nervous at the same time?

Your a born with the instinctual program just like everyone else. But at sometime you have adopted a belief, a barrier to the perception of reality. These feelings are not being generated by anything outside of you.

This belief comes from conditioning by past experiences.These beliefs are likely to have been picked up from other insecure people when you were very young and impressionable. This was taught to you by other peoples behavior and their panic reactions, that every time the outside world did not conform to a certain pattern you must create an emotional turmoil within yourself. Getting caught up in this judgment creates tension, insecurity and anxiety

Awareness has the power to transform. The fact that you are investigating starts the process and as you continue practicing you will get closer to PCE occurring.

Notice the feeling sick, was there tightening of the muscles in the stomach area as this would be a visceral response to your instinctive reflex action.

When you got to the point where your heart was just thumping what was happening in your mind. Were you projecting thoughts (fantasizing about a future event or replaying a past experience)?

Emotions follow a pattern and if you recognize that pattern you can interrupt it before the feedback loop gains momentum

You have the reflexive response
a physical body reaction, heart pounding
the condition thoughts (fantasizing about a future event or replaying a past experience)
the bodies response to these new emotions. , feeling sick

Check why your heart is pounding and you are nervous, see how silly it is as you aren't even interacting with the other person yet. There is no use worrying about some future event that will never come or some past event that you cant change.

Get back to feeling happy, if need be recall a past event were you were happy. By getting back to being happy you redirect all that nervous energy into the intent of being happy and still the mind and body.

Edit: words were jumbled I am a bit dyslexic

I thought I was coming down with something, and I wasn't sure whether it was linked to the nervousness until it was all over.
I suppose I was projecting something, at the back of my mind. There wasn't much thought about the meeting. I was paying attention to the feelings.

I didn't see it as silly. Trying to see something as silly when in the midst of a strong emotion has never panned out for me. The feeling/heart pounding was just there, continuing on and on. I suppose it's pointless trying to get back to feeling happy when you don't see the current feelings as silly.

Silly may be a poor choice of words but the fact that you are reacting to a situation that hasn't occurred as yet should be enough for you to question how you are affected by something that doesnt exist. The issue must be with you not external.
This should give you the intent to get back to being happy as this actual world is safe, there is no real reason to be nervous. Dig deep into what is occurring as it is occurring in your body and mind. Get to the point were you can find the very trigger as it occurs. Regain your innocence

Edit: I should add that this all takes time and with patient practice you will succeed. Every time you are aware practice HAIETMOBA.

Ok, I will keep practicing. Thanks for your help again!

And thank you to Jason as your questions are helping with my continuing practice

Have a great weekend
Jeff

Whoa, if this were true we'd be SO screwed! Yikes!

I've found that if you just assume that people like you, and embody that, there's no need to worry about the racing heart, sweating and tension, because they don't occur (or they occur less, depending on the situation). The other thing that happens is that people approach you, smile at you, talk to you, flirt with you, etc.