I’ve been collecting “cues” that help me do a little better in social situations. Here’s a couple nice ones.
1) It seems like part of social anxiety is about feeling that you have a relaxed inner core somewhere, surrounded by a tense shell, and sudden attention from other people is threatening to the core. My “cue” is to feel the part that you’re protecting, and make it tense as well. You can even find it by looking in the mirror, if some aspect of your posture or face is saying “don’t look at me, I’m slack and not quite here”, just make it tense! Bring all of yourself right here! Then the metaphorical knife of other people’s attention won’t feel threatening anymore, because your inside is just as tough as the outside. It even gets fun to “bump” into people’s attention and see how they react.
2) When you feel like other people aren’t listening to what you say, the problem is often with your voice. Many people advise working on things like breath support, but I’ve found it more helpful to focus on the shape of the vowels. A nice exercise is to try making an “ah” sound with different mouth shapes, learning to feel the shape of the vowel that comes out. It’s both aural and tactile, you can also make shapes silently and imagine how they sound. Then you can experiment with making the vowel shapes emphasize your words, pretty much ignoring volume and pitch. Somehow it helps me say things that are just spontaneously funny, and even helps me sing more precisely in tune, not sure why.
I’ve been collecting “cues” that help me do a little better in social situations. Here’s a couple nice ones.
1) It seems like part of social anxiety is about feeling that you have a relaxed inner core somewhere, surrounded by a tense shell, and sudden attention from other people is threatening to the core. My “cue” is to feel the part that you’re protecting, and make it tense as well. You can even find it by looking in the mirror, if some aspect of your posture or face is saying “don’t look at me, I’m slack and not quite here”, just make it tense! Bring all of yourself right here! Then the metaphorical knife of other people’s attention won’t feel threatening anymore, because your inside is just as tough as the outside. It even gets fun to “bump” into people’s attention and see how they react.
2) When you feel like other people aren’t listening to what you say, the problem is often with your voice. Many people advise working on things like breath support, but I’ve found it more helpful to focus on the shape of the vowels. A nice exercise is to try making an “ah” sound with different mouth shapes, learning to feel the shape of the vowel that comes out. It’s both aural and tactile, you can also make shapes silently and imagine how they sound. Then you can experiment with making the vowel shapes emphasize your words, pretty much ignoring volume and pitch. Somehow it helps me say things that are just spontaneously funny, and even helps me sing more precisely in tune, not sure why.