The Calm Confidence Podcast: Social Anxiety and Being Yourself

Social anxiety makes everything harder, especially dating. When we are attracted to someone our anxious skyrockets and we become stumbling, bumbling fools. Fear of rejection and humiliation throw more wood on the fire, culminating in what feels like an impossible task to take on. In this video I will break down how you can and should approach dating if you have social anxiety. I'll cover the 3...

Sorry it’s been a busy week and I haven’t had a chance to record a full episode. This is a short video I made a YouTube a few weeks ago that I forgot to download to the pod. Enjoy! Social anxiety can feel like a never ending loop that is impossible to escape. The shame we feel traps us. If we don’t act, we feel like cowards. If we do act, but it doesn’t go well, we feel embarrassed, which reconfir...

When we are socially anxious for long enough, we start to become very cynical towards the world. We start to believe people are cruel and kindess is pointless. The more we withdraw, the more we believe people have nothing good to offer and we convince ourselves that we're better off being isolating and alone. But now we have become the very negativity that we say we hate. When we start to open...

This may be a difficult episode for some of you to hear, but you need to hear it. In this episode I explore how we allow social anxiety to sabotage our own progress and desire to change. Although not always conscious, sometimes we do this that don't help our social anxiety in the long run because of what we want to feel in the short term. I discuss primary and secondary gains, as well as the e...

For many of us, the scariest part of social anxiety is not simply talking to people, it is the fear that other people will soon find out just how anxious we are. This consumes us with embarrassment and shame, and causes us to try to hide our symptoms. We think hiding our symptoms will make us feel more confident but in reality it only makes us more self conscious and obsessed with our symptoms. In...

Here are 5 very practical ways to keep the conversation going when you don't know what to say. When we feel socially anxious we overcomplicate conversations. There is no deep or mysterious way to get a conversation off the ground, we just need to say SOMETHING! As the conversation progresses, we often find ourselves lost in our mind trying to come up with something to say, instead of simply al...

Rejection stings, but it doesn't have to consume us. In this video I discuss how to overcome our fear of rejection and learn how to prevent the downward spiral that it often leads to. If you struggle with confidence or low self esteem, it can be quite common to be sensitive to rejection. This video will give you practical tools you can use to become more resilient to the pain of rejection. Podcast...

Social anxiety can be a long battle, which is why you need patience and self compassion. Along the way will be struggles, embarrassing moments, uncomfortable feelings and failed social attempts. It can be very tempting to pack it in as soon as things get difficult, but like most things, real change comes with persistence. Podcast/Instagram/TikTok/Coaching - Find all links in Linktree below: https:...

This was another older video from Youtube that I never uploaded. I spent a large portion of my life attempting to extract respect and confidence from other people, only to realize this is a loop that never ends. We spend so much time focused on what other's think is acceptable, that we don't pause to ask ourselves what is meaningful to us. I someone out there find this helpful. Podcast/Ins...

The worst part of social anxiety is not necessarily the symptoms, it's the how much it robs us of our life. In this video I discuss the effects social anxiety has on our dating life, relationships, work life and general satistfaction. Stick around to the end to find out how you can start turning this fear into motivation so you can finally take back your life. Interested in following me or boo...

This is another older youtube video I never uploaded to the podcast. In this episode, I explore what I think is the biggest mistake people with social anxiety make; focusing too much on improving social skills. Sometimes our attempts to become better at socializing perpetuates our obsessiveness and constant self criticism. Instead, let's focus on the underlying fear of rejection and embarrassment....

Another older video from youtube that I never uploaded to the podcast. We often fall off our path out of fear of judgment from others and we forget the fact that our life is ours to live and no one else's. The irony is that the people judging us are often only judging us because they are unsatisfied with their own lives. After all, who has time to judge others if they are focused on themselves...

This was a youtube video I uploaded back in February that I forgot to add to the podcast. At the end of the video I mention a follow up episode called "Depression Changes You." If you're interested in listening to that episode you can find it on the podcast homepage, dated Feb 10. Forgiveness is never easy, especially when it's time to forgive ourselves. We forget that the person...

In this episode I explore the role of negativity bias in social anxiety. We often believe we have an objective understanding of ourselves, when in reality our narrative shapes everything we see. In this episode I will challenge you to challenge yourself and your beliefs about yourself and the world. Maybe we've got this thing all wrong. Interested in following me or booking a coaching session?...

This is the audio from a short video I made on YouTube. Social anxiety can also impact our relationships. It can make us worry about where we stand with someone, if they are mad at us, if they like us, etc... These worries can sometimes lead to destructive behaviors (seeking validation and reassurance) that ultimately do more harm than good. In this episode I explore what can be done about your de...

Social Anxiety makes us passive, but the more passive we are the less control we feel over our own lives. We hold onto narratives decades old because we have no new information to change them. If we want to change how we think and feel about ourselves, we have to change how we act first. Give yourself a chance to learn something new about yourself. Maybe you are not the unlikeable loser you have a...

Alcohol, unfortunately, can be very good at calming our nerves. I say unfortunately because this can create a very dangerous cycle. If we rely on alcohol to get through our social situations, we increase our likehood of having alcohol problems. We are also not addressing the fear of socializing at it's core. When we drink we are finding a loophole around the fear, which doesn't allow us to...

Self-consciousness prevents us from living and acting freely in the world. When we are in a social situation and we become self conscious it becomes nearly impossible to engage in conversations because we feel we need to constantly watch and edit ourselves. In this episode I explore why we are self conscious and what mindset shifts and practical skills we can adopt to step outside of ourselves and...

PODCAST NAME CHANGE! THIS WAS FORMERLY THE "THERAPY ON TAP PODCAST." Sometimes it feels like no matter how many times we put ourselves in social situations, nothing gets better. We are still filled with the same dread and anxiety, despite people and mental health professionals telling you "you have to challenge yourself" if you want to overcome fear and build confidence. In thi...

When we feel anxious in social situations, we play it safe. We don't tell the funny joke, we sit in the corner of the room, we don't share our interests. This can temporarily make us feel more safe and at ease, but actually exacerbates the anxiety in the long run. In this episode I explore why playing it safe is a dangerous game, how it traps us from truly accepting ourselves and allowing...

Every socially anxious person's nightmare... You're in a conversation, things seem to be going ok, when suddenly... your brain freezes. Now your heart and your thoughts are racing, trying to come up with something to say. What do you do now? In this video I dive deep into this commonly asked questioned by social anxiety sufferers, and the answer may not be at all what you expected. #socialanxiety...

Self confidence can be quite the Paradox. If you don't already have confidence, no amount of achievement will give it to you. This is because our low self esteem doesn't allow us to appreciate our successes. In this video, I explore a more reliable way to attain and build confidence; learning to trust ourselves to overcome rather than measuring ourselves based on our perceived achievements. #confi...

Marijuana has become more accepted both culturally and legally, and on the whole this has been a good thing. However, I think we are being dishonest if we don't acknowledge the very real dangers of marijuana. Marijuana has been proven to increase the likelihood of psychosis and schizophrenia. It is also not as effective as advertised in treating anxiety and depression. I'm not saying you n...

Depression isn't always an internal problem. Sometimes we are depressed because our life is simply not going well. Some of these reasons are out of our control, others are in our control but we're having difficulty making the appropriate changes. In this episode I explore how modern therapy and psychiatry has become lazy by labeling everything a "disorder." It's not a disorde...

You may not realize this, but by trying to "improve" your social skills, you are actually making your social anxiety worse. If you struggle with social anxiety you already obsess about how you come across, what you are saying, how you are saying it, etc. By trying to "improve" your skills, you actually exacerbate the obsessiveness. In this episode I will discuss how you can let...