In daily life, we might be frustrated by social anxiety and low self-esteem if we are not confident enough.With the society develops in a rapid speed, social anxiety in different degrees are unavoidable but can be reduced with your efforts. But first we should be aware of that it is not quite easy. Indeed, low-esteem is the result of thinking negatively about yourself while social anxiety may be due to being overly concerned about what other people may be thinking of you. Both things are the product of poor thinking habits. Over the years, some of those thoughts have become deeply internalized in your mind. So removing them may be very hard. For instance, you may go out at night alone and feel good as long as you are doing it. But as soon as you stop for a few weeks, it seems like your old anxious and low-esteem thoughts start crawling into your head again. Accepting anxiety and practicing meditation are suggested hereby to overcome some kind of social anxiety and self-esteem are provided.
1. Accepting Anxiety
Whenever you feel anxious don't try to fight it back. Commonly what happens is; you probably are in a public place. You mind gets out of control and starts thinking a million of different thoughts, such as “That girl is probably checking me out. I feel nervous”, then you try to fight it back and think, “I got to look cool”. Afterward, you force yourself cooler, whatever that is,then you feel fake and even more anxious.
As they say, “what you resist persists”. You feel anxious because you are too much in your head. Instead of being more in the moment. For this reason, you can't combat your anxiety thoughts by thinking even more. This will only put you more in your head. As you tend to think even more and more.
So the solution is to just accept your anxiety. The next time you feel anxious then tell yourself, “It’s okay, I feel anxious”, “lt is okay, if I look nervous”.
Don’t try to fight your anxiety. Just accept it and let the thoughts run through your head. Don't focus on them. Instead pay attention to the moment. Look people in the eyes, notice the clothing they are wearing, how does your surrounding look like, how do you feel.
2. Practicing Meditation Daily
Meditation has been one of the most effective methods. Actually, it’s a practice so important that everyone should learn in the stressful society we live nowadays.
By doing meditation daily and finnaly I love it. I have noticed:
1. I feel a lot less anxious throughout my days
2. I have increased drastically my focus
3. I am more aware of my negative thoughts. This gives me more choice to either listen to them or not.
The fact is social anxiety and low self-esteem is caused mostly by poor thinking habits. The first is the result of caring too much about what others may think of you. The second has to do with thinking negatively about yourself.
The solution is to simply quiet your mind by focusing more on the present moment. This is exactly what meditation does. Its practice decreases all the garbage in your head. This includes the thoughts of not being good enough for a particular girl, or what your boss may think of you, etc.
I practice two sections of 30 minutes daily. I do one session in the beginning of the morning and another one at night. It is said to be the best moments of the day to meditate.
However, you don’t need to start with this amount of time. I started by doing one session of 10 minutes every morning. Afterward a month or less, I added one extra session at night. And only then, I gradually started increasing the amount of time.
I recommend for you to do something similar. Because it is a lot easier for you to build a habit slowly but surely. Instead of immediately begin meditating 30 minutes or more each day. Then after a week or less, you probably get tired and quit all together.
Besides, practicing meditation is far simpler than most people commonly assume.
1. Just choose a location. I prefer to make somewhere quiet. You can either sit on a chair or on the floor with your legs crossed.
2. Focus on one point this may be your belly button.
3. Notice your respiration cycle. As your belly goes up when you inhale and down as you exhale.
4. Avoid moving and keep focusing on your respiration for the rest of your practice.
The hardest part is to simply keep focusing on your respiration for an extended period of time. Initially after a few seconds, you may drift back into your thoughts. That is normal, don't worry! When that happens then don't try to block your thoughts or get mad. Instead, ignore them and focus once more on your respiration.
Simply keep practicing accepting your anxiety and combing with meditation, this will drastically decrease your anxiety and negative thoughts. You should also notice the fact is social anxiety is not something exactly bad! Nor something you should try to completely remove from your life. Actually, that wouldn't be a good idea! Having some social anxiety is always good, it is what prevents people from doing crazy stuff in public.And under social anxiety, you may also be under a certain stable level of social pressure and this might be beneficial to stimulate your own potential!
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