How to get rid of anxiety over embarrassing experiences in the past?

ThrowawayPUA · 2012-04-07T16:24:01+00:00

The root cause of your anxiety is your thoughts. That is the only place the issue is going to be resolved. That would require "reprogramming" your thoughts from negative, unrealistic thoughts to positive ones. What I'm referring to is a leading branch of psychotherapy. It's called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT for short. If you go on Amazon and look up "David Burns," you'll find some very helpful books on CBT.

If you start CBT therapy on your own using one of Burns books, it will very likely have you writing down negative thoughts at the end of the day and then reframing them with more realistic, positive ones.

switch50 · 2012-04-07T16:40:47+00:00

Meditate. Practice stilling your thoughts. You'll find that the ego loves to masturbate through repetitive thought, such as wishful acts to avenge your self image, your identity.

Meditate, introspect and examine your thoughts and behaviors and seek correlations. Or try some shrooms buddy and let the teacher handle you haha!

2012-04-07T16:12:52+00:00

Honestly, you might not like to hear it, but I think the real way to get over negative memories of social interaction in the past is to replace them with positive ones. When you're thinking about that guy you befriended or that girl you kissed last night, past embarassments will fade.

The best revenge is success.

goblgobl · 2012-04-07T17:45:38+00:00

I deal with this and I think I'm on my way to getting completely over it.

The most important thing I see here is you've narrowed down the source of your anxiety. That can sometimes be the hardest thing to do. That shows a level of self-assesment/mental clarity that I think is going to make things a lot easier for you as you go about improving your situation.

mileshigh_23 is spot on, this is going on in your head. You've repeated those same thoughts enough to established a pattern of recalling not only those experiences, but of those emotions and judgements of yourself. It's become so automatic, the slightest bump in the road in your daily life sends all those feelings rushing back to your head. At least thats how it was for me.

What's undoubtedly helped me is a book called "Learned Optimism" by Martin Seligman. Most critically, he talks about something called "explanatory style" - the way people explain to themselves the world around them. Everyone develops patterns for how they do this, and those can be either good or destructive. Before checking it out, read this, as its a good overview of the book, and psychological mechanisms at work: https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-05-01/optimism.md

There was a IAMA about a year about about someone who overcame social anxiety and did Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in a group setting, and wrote about it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/hiyzl/24_year_old_who_suffered_social_anxiety_his/ Here's the specific thread of comments where he talks about it: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/hiyzl/24_year_old_who_suffered_social_anxiety_his/c1vrssp

One last thing, where I found the diagram more helpful than the article: http://activerain.com/blogsview/1116498/behavior-affects-attitude-attitude-affects-behavior

The idea being, get use to acting before believing, and soon those actions will help to set new attitudes and beliefs that are congruent with your new behavior. What are things people with no anxiety can do, that you can't? Start taking baby steps to do those things, ignoring any negative emotions you may have at the beginning of the process. You'll never get there if you wait to have the right set of attitudes/beliefs before doing anything.

Xeno505 · 2012-04-07T18:04:16+00:00

You may be experiencing this.

Best thing to do is to laugh it off.

2012-04-07T19:14:23+00:00

Another good book is The Power of Now. The past and future are just illusions constructed by your mind. Some people are more burdened by the past, others worry too much about the future. I used to worry a lot about the future, or think that I wouldn't be happy until I accomplished certain things. Over time I learned to just not worry about that and focus on doing things that make me happy in the present.

Re: CBT, one technique that's worked for me is to wear a rubber band around my wrist and snap it when I catch myself thinking negative thoughts. (As an aside, I've worn it on dates with women and they usually ask about it. I explain its purpose it and that often leads to a more personal, authentic conversation.)

More recently I had success using it to recognize when I was having arguments in my head (whether it's with an ex-girlfriend, some troll on the Internet or even myself).

Those kinds of thought patterns are generally useless. Learning how to recognize them as they're happening is the first step to stopping them.

2012-04-09T07:32:31+00:00

Are you me or something? I used to/still have the same problem but to a lesser extent. Some ways I solved it was by getting rid of all the negative people in my life that would constantly bring up these events and use it as a ploy to make themselves feel better. Also, if you smoke weed this can make it worse as was the case with me. It gave me horrible anxiety and depression. I still do it on occasion but not even close to everyday and making sure I'm with people when I do it, as I don't think about the dumb things in life and just focus on having a laugh. Lone stoning is probably the most detrimental thing you can do mentally. Lastly, it just comes down to mental toughness. You allow these thoughts to get in your head and let them bother you and let people bother you. Like you said, it happened and people probably don't remember it. Just move on, don't look in the past, it is what it is. Focus on having a positive future.

Title	How to get rid of anxiety over embarrassing experiences in the past?
Author	kindacurious123
Upvotes	3
Comments	9
Date	April 7, 2012 3:55 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/seduction
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/rxy6t/how_to_get_rid_of_anxiety_over_embarrassing/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/seduction/how-to-get-rid-of-anxiety-over-embarrassing.1330968 https://theredarchive.com/post/1330968

Comments