I Feel Anxious Around People — Social Anxiety Meditation

If you are standing outside a door right now, a party, a meeting, a room full of people and your heart is going faster than it should and your mind is already rehearsing everything that might go wrong in there, stop. Just for a moment, because what you are feeling is not a warning. It is not your body telling you that something bad is about to happen. It is simply a nervous system that has learned somewhere along the way to treat other people as a threat.

And today we change that story. Welcome to Carming Anxiety. I'm Martin Hewlett, Clinical Hypnotherapist and former Paramedic. And for the next 10 minutes, this is your space.

Now find somewhere comfy. You could sit or lie down whatever you prefer and if it's safe to do so, let your eyes close. Let's begin by giving your nervous system something real to hold onto. The breath.

Now breathe in slowly through your nose. We'll breathe in for four, we'll hold for two, then out for five. Feel your shoulders dropping lower with every exhale.

Feel your jaw begin to unclench. Again, with me, ready, in through the nose, one, two, three, four, hold two, out, long and slow, three, four, five. That extended out breath is not just relaxing. It is the direct signal to your vagus nerve.

Your body's very own calm down switch that there is no emergency here. Your heart rate already beginning to settle. Your chest already beginning to soften. One more time together, ready, in, two, three, four, pause, two and release, two, three, four, five.

Good. You're already doing this. Now, within the safety of your beautiful mind, I want you to picture yourself somewhere you have always felt completely at ease. Maybe it's a chair in a room that you love, a quiet corner of a garden, a beach, a low tide, just you and the sound of the water.

Wherever it is, you are there right now. Take note of the light, the temperature of the air as it touches the skin on your face, the sounds that surround you. There are no people here who need anything from you. There is no performance required.

There is no right answer, no version of yourself to maintain. You are simply here. And I want you to notice something within this place with no audience, no expectation, no judgment. You are entirely yourself, relaxed, present and real.

You are the person, the one sitting quietly in that safe place right now. That is who you are, truly, completely. Social anxiety doesn't change who you are. It just throws a filter over it.

It tells you the room is watching, judging, waiting for you to stumble. That filter is not the truth. Here is what I want you to know from years of working in some of the most high pressure environments a human can ever enter. The people in that room are not thinking about you, the way you think they are.

They are thinking about themselves, their own worries, their own version of this exact feeling. You are not alone in that room. You are surrounded by people who understand more than you know. And you, with your warmth, your care, your presence, you have something to offer within.

Let that settle in now. Breathe in. And as you breathe out, allow your shoulders to drop a little more. Now the story of what might go wrong to drift further away, like a cloud across an open sky.

You don't have to perform. You just have to be there. And that is enough. Now allow these words to settle into every part of you, repeating them quietly in your mind as I speak them.

I am calm in the presence of other people.

I do not need to be perfect, to be worthy of connection.

Other people's opinions of me are none of my business.

I am allowed to take up space in any room I enter.

My presence is enough. Deeper now, softer. Let those words settle further in. Pass the noise, pass the rehearsing mind into the part of you that already knows them to be true.

Because simply put, you are worthy of connection exactly as you are.

One more time, deeper this time. I am calm in the presence of other people. I do not need to be perfect, to be worthy of connection.

Other people's opinions of me are none of my business.

I am allowed to take up space in any room I enter.

My presence is enough. And to carry this feeling with you, here are your three daily caring tips for social anxiety. One, arrive two minutes early, not to perform, not to network, just to be in the space before it fills. Let your nervous system acclimatize quietly, without the presence of an entrance.

Two minutes of stillness before the room arrives is worth more than ten minutes of pracing in the car park. Two, find one person. Find one person, one genuine conversation and let the room look after itself.

Connection doesn't happen with crowds, it happens with one person at a time. And three, notice what went right. After any social situation, your anxious mind will catalog everything it thinks went wrong. Counter it deliberately.

Name three things that went fine. A moment of eye contact. Someone who laughed, a sentence that you said that landed. Your brain can be retrained, one small noticing at a time.

Now gently, begin to return. Wiggle your fingers and toes, feel the surface beneath you. Bring your awareness back to the room, back into the day, back into the person you actually are, not the one anxiety describes. Take a full breath in and then as you let go, when you're ready, open your eyes.

What you just did matters, ten minutes of deliberately choosing calm over catastrophe. That is not nothing. That is everything. There are over two thousand three hundred sessions in my library, explore and enjoy and find your perfect coffee break for the song.

If you want more, if you're ready to go deeper, my anxiety circuit break it courses there too at calminganxiety.fm 5 focused clinical hypnotherapy sessions for just sixty seven dollars.

I'm Martin. This is calming anxiety. In everything you do today, my friend. Be kind.