Do you feel socially awkward every time you’re out and about? You get people that say that they’re so socially awkward they find it hard to live their own lives the way they think they want to. You feel this way when you’re out at the shopping centre, when you’re eating with somebody at a restaurant and just casually walking around and now you have a panic attack.
The thing is that I grew up socially awkward for the most part of my life, from when I would go to the local shops with my mum, to being in high school almost every single day, to going on holiday and basically any public place that I was at I was always riddled with anxiety and I would just feel so awkward and nervous. I found it extremely difficult to talk to people who weren’t family or friends of me. This is what I found out on how to combat social awkwardness, so I’ll show you the reasons why you are socially awkward.
- You believe the hype. In our own minds we have hierarchy, so if you’re working in a job with a manager, that manager has a manager, and that manager has another manager, well you’re going to feel awkward because you may think to yourself that you’re a nobody. Let’s say you go to a party, you’re having a drink and everyone there is talking about their fabulous career, they’re talking about how amazing their life is, travelling to different countries. Though in your mind you’re thinking to yourself you’re just at home all the time when you’re not working. Well, that in itself is good enough, that’s amazing so why don’t you see it? So you believe in the hype that everybody’s life is more glamorous than your own, so whenever you are out and about you have this mind-set that everybody has got it all figured out and that was me for a long period of time. Up until I noticed that they real secret is that nobody knows what they are doing because we’re all just walking around on a planet that’s spinning very fast. So just be transparent, imagine everyone is naked just now, and the fact that everyone goes to the toilet.
- Repetitive meet and greets. You might meet someone, and every time you meet them you say the exact same thing this person, for example “How are you? I’m fine. You’re right. Ok, bye!”. This all gets a bit tiresome, you’re exasperated and in fact you don’t want to even meet this person because you already know what you’re going to say to each other. That’s why it feels so awkward because it feels so forced. The organic flow is when you dive deeper into the conversation with deep questions such as, “What’s you biggest childhood memory? What would you say was your best quality? Who’s had the biggest influence on you?” There is way more than that but in essence it’s the after effect that loosens the both of you up to each other. You’re socially awkward because your conversations simply don’t go anywhere and there’s this awkward silence. So in order to stop that just dive deeper into the conversation, get intimate with people and ask more questions.
- The comparing mind. I was always comparing my life to other people’s and that’s one of the greatest traps for your anxiety, because you feel that you’re being left behind somewhere and everybody else is getting on with their life and your life isn’t moving anywhere, you feel like you’re just stuck. However that is just the belief because really it’s all false, these kinds of belief systems. So what I started to do was to create my own league, to stop thinking that you can know someone’s life just because of their Facebook selfie. The thing is, that that’s not real, that’s just the part of their life. So you stop comparing yourself to other people when you learn how to love yourself one hundred per cent, and then you take the focus off how marvellous you think other people’s life’s are and then you start thinking that you’ve actually got a lot going for yourself right now. When you’re around these people you can actually hold your ground, stand up tall and have a great conversation. You feel socially awkward because you feel inadequate you don’t feel worthy to be in other people’s presence because someone has told you that you’re no good, well who’s told you that? You. So just stop comparing yourself, comparison is the greatest thief of joy.
- Not expressing emotions. What I’ve learned in my life was that I was unable to express a full range of emotions. If you can express your emotions, it means that you are relaxed to express whatever is going on in that mind of yours. A lot of people are just sharing one kind of emotion, and at certain times, like if you’re with friends but you don’t really tap into different emotions. We feel much more relaxed around people when we can open up emotionally to them, that’s how to be beat social awkwardness by learning to express the full range of emotions by being around people who respect you and you just don’t care on how they perceive you.
- Not showing the real you. I was really socially awkward because people didn’t know the real me, from what I remember in school whilst in my teens, around the friends that I have, I remember that I just felt odd like I was an alien and that if they really knew how I thought at the moment then I probably wouldn’t have any friends. The bottom line is that you are afraid of people seeing the real you and that is why in society people try so hard to be accepted, to just fit in. They know that their own minds are pretty crazy, so it’s this mind-set that they want to fit in and that they don’t want people to see who they really are. I’ve got news for you, the people who really love you for you will accept you for who you really are. So show all the different sides of you because then you will meet your real friends.
- You’re not showing your vulnerability. I realised that I was ashamed to be vulnerable, I always had the thought that I had to be this macho man, I can only show my mental and physical strengths but never my weaknesses, that I’ve got to talk to people trying to show I was “cool” and that I can’t express my sensitivity. Then I realised that that’s simply just a load of nonsense because I actually like elephants, cartoons and so many different things. I like the good sensitive life, classical jazz music, going to an amazing spot to watch the sunset, that’s all cool for me. So being vulnerable with help you overcome social awkwardness, learn to show people that you aren’t perfect, that you still have challenges. That’s why I’ve connected with so many people, I’m not here to show you how perfect I am because nobody is perfect, I’m actually here to show you how I’ve worked on my imperfections, how I’ve accepted them and how they have helped me in becoming my greatest version. Vulnerability is the human element, that’s how you create this beautiful connection with someone else, when you’re able to be vulnerable with them and you don’t have to appear like you are this person with no problems because that’s not the truth.
- Being in the wrong environment. What I’ve seen through my life as what I was in the wrong environment for a long time, in an environment where I felt alone even though there were people around me. This was also when I was in high school, in my classes I just felt that I couldn’t really connect with the people that I was around, I felt socially awkward because once again it was that repetitive meet and greet. Even when I moved to Glasgow in my first one or two months living in student accommodation and in college I wasn’t really resonating with these kind of environments. So ask yourself if you’re really suited to the environment that you’re in, certain environments work better for different people at certain times. You’ve got to know the best environment in which you thrive in becoming your greatest self.
- Not loving yourself. We go through life scratching our heads and a lot of us simply don’t love ourselves. When everyone at your table is talking, you feel like your voice doesn’t matter, so you let everybody else talk while you remain silent, so of course you’re going to feel awkward. Well the thing is that your voice does matter and anything that you say is just as important as anything that they say. That’s really what did it for me, to thin that I wasn’t going to be silent when everyone else is talking and actually say something, so I started to be less socially awkward because I started to say what I felt.
- You feel you aren’t being heard. Whenever we feel nobody is really listening to us, then that’s a really socially awkward moment. So surround yourself with people were you feel heard, loved and cared for, you see right now we are living in great times of change, so much is happening on Earth and you want to realise that your opinion matters because it does. Plus who you are matters too and you are worthy to be in the presence of anybody.
Rare Moments 