All livings thing communicate. It's an essential part of surviving. But how you communicate determines how enjoyable your life experiences are.
Communication is social and emotional. It is about navigating complex friendship circles and feeling pressure to deliver or live up to expectations. It's about listening and understanding and choosing words carefully.
It's really hard.
Whether it's receiving feedback, giving feedback, following directions, or reading the fine print, communication is pretty much the only social emotional skill you'll have to do to survive.
It's also the absolute worst thing for people with social anxiety.
Let's dig in.
Communication is social and emotional. It is about navigating complex friendship circles and feeling pressure to deliver or live up to expectations. It's about listening and understanding and choosing words carefully.
It's really hard.
Whether it's receiving feedback, giving feedback, following directions, or reading the fine print, communication is pretty much the only social emotional skill you'll have to do to survive.
It's also the absolute worst thing for people with social anxiety.
Let's dig in.
Communication skills vs. Social skillsCommunication skills help you effectively get your message out. They are a part of social skills.
Social skills help you interact effectively and harmoniously with others. They are communication skills, active listening, empathy, perspective-taking, cooperation, and conflict resolution. Social skills are essential for building and maintaining positive relationships. Developing strong social skills helps us make connections. Effective communication, empathy, and cooperation are vital for positive relationships, resolving conflicts, and working with others. These skills enable us to navigate social situations with confidence and build a supportive network of support. |
Parts of Communication1. What you say
The words you use and what you're trying to say aren't always the same. But the words you choose is a big part of communicating. You can't always know what words are the exact right words (very few people ever do in their whole entire life) but you can pay special attention to the quality of the words you choose. 2. How you say it Choosing to use a sad song with sad pictures while asking people to help in an advertisement or choosing specific words about what you have been doing so you don't incriminate yourself are examples of this. The tone and timing of your words impact how your words are received. 3. What you show How you stand, whether you make eye-contact, and what you do with your hands are examples of non-verbal communication. This is communicating without saying anything. |
Communication & Anxiety
|
Anxiety affects what you show, how you say it, and what you say.
Without effective communication, your social skills feel messy and inconsistent. With Anxiety, there are three important communication skills we struggle with:
At the end of the day, anxiety has a lot to do with control. When we don't feel in control, our body has a very physical response. This makes us feel even more out of control.
We feel like we can't control our body, the situation, the things the other person says and how they feel. We can't control our feelings or the words we say. We can't control how others will react to what we say or do, and we can't control their perception of the situation. But we CAN control some of that stuff. We can control our body. We can control our feelings and the words we say. We can control our perception. We can only control what we can. And we have to accept that. With communication, there are some hacks to help. And remember, this is the way you practice your plan:
|
The bad stuff that you need help with.
|
There are parts of social anxiety that we can control and then there are red flags. When you feel the red flags, it's important to ask for help.
These red flags are things we might not be able to handle on our own. Shame Shame is the feeling we have when we believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with us, both in our own self-view, and in our belief about how others view us. Shame is much deeper than embarrassment, which is the feeling we have when we believe we did something to appear foolish to others. We can find a way to laugh at embarrassment, but shame is something that we hide. Shame is something that we should feel when we do something hurtful, but not when we make mistakes. Shame hates the light of day, so you need to tap into your support system and talk about why you feel shame. Working on your self-compassion and self-esteem helps you to forgive yourself and working on your mindset allows you to turn mistakes into growing experiences. Rumination Rumination is the act of spending extended periods of time focusing on negative thoughts. With social anxiety, rumination comes in the form of worry about how we come across to others (either before or after an interaction, or both), as well as harsh self-criticism—beating ourselves up—over ways we think we embarrassed ourselves. Ruminating this way leads to shame: feeling badly about ourselves, not just about what happened. Dwelling on yourself with a spotlight is unhelpful and destructive. The best way to work on this is to sort out your thoughts. Working on self-compassion, mindset, and self-esteem allows you to look at situations with a different perspective. Resentment & Anger If your needs are left unacknowledged and unexpressed, it can turn into frustration, which can lead to anger. If you stuff down your feelings because you want to avoid conflict or because you have an underlying fear about something, those feelings of resentment and anger can snowball. When you're scared or worried about something, you often choose anger, unconsciously, as a way to feel as though you are in control of your anxiety. You will lash out and bring up resolved situations. You are strict with your rules of behavior and don't tolerate anyone else standing up for themselves or having their needs met. The way to combat the resentment and anger is to be assertive and empathic, and to sort out your emotions. |
|
The Reddest Flags
The Easy Way Out:
One of the most destructive things you will learn is that drugs and alcohol will give you the false feeling of being worry-free.
You will want to keep that going because it's easier than doing the work. Here's the thing. For you, it's not easier. You are high risk, which means because of your anxiety, you are more likely to have a life-long problem with addiction. You are more likely than your friends without anxiety to battle a lifelong commitment to things that will destroy you.
The good news is that because you are seeking help, you know how serious anxiety is. You also need to remember that if it feels too good to be true, it probably is. There is no safe way (just a little, just sometimes) to handle drugs or alcohol with anxiety.
The first lesson you will learn is that all those bad feelings will be ten times as bad the next day, making it so that you'll want to keep going or risk feeling even worse. High Risk.
The second is that some things are illegal until you're a certain age for a reason: your brain is still growing and there are mountains of research that prove alcohol and drugs will not only alter your brain, but can actually kill cells and connections. Like building a lego city and destroying it for a minute of relief.
The third lesson you will learn is that all of the work outlined on this site (and in our book) will still have to be done. Don't wait to do the work until you've killed off vital parts of your beautiful brain and are struggling at 30 to hold it together. Do it now to achieve better results than instant and temporary relief.
Have an honest discussion with your most trusted adult if you encounter this and feel confident in saying "no" because you are high risk.
Social Media
Oh social media how we despise you.
We purposefully don't have social media (except Pinterest) for this Maddy Set Go. We believe our children (3, 9, & 12 years old) don't need the FOMO (fear of missing out), unhealthy opinions, and misinformation that is social media.
Our 12 year old loves TikTok and YouTube, and is very technologically savvy. So we found this site to meet that social media short videos desire:
Weare8.com
WeAre8 is all about making a BIG impact on the world through small daily actions! Connect with your friends, share pictures and vids and follow inspiring creators who are changing the game. Plus, you can earn rewards for watching videos that support social and environmental causes.
You can find us at maddysetgo on weare8!
One of the most destructive things you will learn is that drugs and alcohol will give you the false feeling of being worry-free.
You will want to keep that going because it's easier than doing the work. Here's the thing. For you, it's not easier. You are high risk, which means because of your anxiety, you are more likely to have a life-long problem with addiction. You are more likely than your friends without anxiety to battle a lifelong commitment to things that will destroy you.
The good news is that because you are seeking help, you know how serious anxiety is. You also need to remember that if it feels too good to be true, it probably is. There is no safe way (just a little, just sometimes) to handle drugs or alcohol with anxiety.
The first lesson you will learn is that all those bad feelings will be ten times as bad the next day, making it so that you'll want to keep going or risk feeling even worse. High Risk.
The second is that some things are illegal until you're a certain age for a reason: your brain is still growing and there are mountains of research that prove alcohol and drugs will not only alter your brain, but can actually kill cells and connections. Like building a lego city and destroying it for a minute of relief.
The third lesson you will learn is that all of the work outlined on this site (and in our book) will still have to be done. Don't wait to do the work until you've killed off vital parts of your beautiful brain and are struggling at 30 to hold it together. Do it now to achieve better results than instant and temporary relief.
Have an honest discussion with your most trusted adult if you encounter this and feel confident in saying "no" because you are high risk.
Social Media
Oh social media how we despise you.
We purposefully don't have social media (except Pinterest) for this Maddy Set Go. We believe our children (3, 9, & 12 years old) don't need the FOMO (fear of missing out), unhealthy opinions, and misinformation that is social media.
Our 12 year old loves TikTok and YouTube, and is very technologically savvy. So we found this site to meet that social media short videos desire:
Weare8.com
WeAre8 is all about making a BIG impact on the world through small daily actions! Connect with your friends, share pictures and vids and follow inspiring creators who are changing the game. Plus, you can earn rewards for watching videos that support social and environmental causes.
You can find us at maddysetgo on weare8!
|
|
|
|