Understanding and working through anxious thoughts and feelings
Topic: Social interactions
Many of us felt out of practice when it came to our social skills and ability to form connections during COVID. As we navigate building back up our social skills, here are some ways to tackle anxious thinking and further our connections.
Understanding what anxiety is
Written by: Margot Wallace, Registered Social Worker, MSW, RSW
Anxiety is a way for our body to alert us to danger. Anxiety tells us that there is a threat and we need to defend ourselves; it helps to keep us safe. It is actually quite useful, so we would not want to get rid of it completely. However, sometimes our body tells us there is imminent danger when there is none (Anxiety Canada). When this happens, this is when anxiety can begin to be problematic for folks. Often when it comes to anxiety about social interactions, people commonly “fear being scrutinized by others and receiving negative evaluation or judgement” (DiMatteo, 2022).
Acknowledging when we feel it
When we acknowledge and speak to our anxiety with “I see you, anxiety- you’re trying to keep me safe, but this actually isn’t dangerous” it can help to bridge the gap between a thought (that isn’t helping us) and reality (that we are safe, and can move through this).
Acknowledging when we are feeling anxious is a helpful tool to better understand where our anxiety comes from (Anxiety Canada). A helpful reframe for when we notice the anxiety is to be “curious rather than judgemental”. Some examples of how to start being curious about your anxiety includes questions such as:
Is there a specific time of day that you feel anxious most often?
Who do you feel anxious around?
What are the signs that you are feeling anxious?
What specific situations cause anxiety symptoms?
Try writing it down so you can remember and potentially put together some patterns. You can keep track by logging the date and time of day, the experience that triggered the symptoms, and the symptoms. Over time, do you notice any patterns?
Addressing avoidance
Avoidance is a common behaviour when experiencing anxious thoughts and feelings (Arnaudova et al. 2017). For example, with social anxiety often our body alerts us to danger in social interactions and so we then tend to avoid them. However, often there are no real dangers. And because of this, these social interactions only begin to feel more dangerous because we are lacking opportunities to prove to our body that social interactions actually are not unsafe and dangerous. Alternatively, sometimes there have been social interactions and relationships that have felt unsafe and our body then overgeneralizes to tell us that this will be the case for all social interactions, and not isolated to just that one experience.
Building a plan for coping with discomfort
As we navigate changing ways of behaving and thinking, so that we are no longer always leaning on avoidance, this can feel uncomfortable and scary. Because of this, it is helpful to build your toolbox of skills to help when you feel those anxiety symptoms coming on. Some of these can be:
Building a mindfulness practice through mindful breathing and/or taking mindful walks
Restorative yoga and movement
Grounding exercises, like noting 5 things you see around you, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you can smell
Build an experiment
Trying to do the things that make us anxious allow us to test what we predicted would happen, and allows us to learn that often those predictions are not actually true. This process, over time, leads to feeling more comfortable, empowered and confident. Setting up an experiment can help guide the way. Start your experiment with a task that usually brings about mild to moderate anxiety for you (Weiss, 2021). Building an experiment includes thinking about: where, when, with who, how, your prediction of what will happen. Be as specific as possible with your plan! Then gradually, as you build confidence through these experiments, work up towards tasks or activities that tend to bring about more anxious feelings.
For example, if your experiment is to go to a social gathering where there will be new people, some helpful tools could be:
Building in a time when you know you will leave- commit to trying and getting out of your comfort zone with your experiment while also leaning into knowing when you will go, and even have a reason lined up if that feels helpful
Lean into active listening and rephrasing if you are feeling unsure about what to say to others, mirror back what you’re hearing them say to you and ask them questions about them to keep the conversation going and take some of that pressure off you
Have a few topics lined up that you feel comfortable talking about, that you can then bring up
Bring someone comforting and safe to you
Once you finish your experiment, go back to your original prediction. Did what you feared would happen actually take place? What was different?
As you practice more and use these skills, they will become more of a habit. Try them out as much as possible, so they become more familiar and therefore less uncomfortable. And don’t worry if you start using some of your avoidant behaviours again, growth is not linear- but just remember to acknowledge when you are and be curious about why.