Understanding our triggers

That constant tiny voice in your head when you are around people; what is it telling you? Whenever we feel attention or eyes fixed on us, what is the first thought or reaction that we have. For me, a lot of times I would freeze and just stare dead in that person’s eye, choking on my words and tears on the verge of falling; not realizing I was already shivering. The first thought used to be “OMG, what will they think?” the surety that I was being evaluated or judged every second of my existence and that too negatively, caused way too much distress. The fact is, the fear of being scrutinized, criticized, rejected, or even offending someone seem like some major triggers – anything that might make us feel embarrassed or humiliated.

I have mentioned this before in previous blogs and it might seem a little repetitive to you but that is its significance in the way we feel – contribution of our underlying beliefs and thoughts to this fear because it does not come out of nowhere. The thought that others will think poorly of us are somewhere rooted in the way we perceive ourselves. The reasons or root causes of such beliefs could be many ranging from

1) Past experiences such as being insulted, criticized, bullied, or rejected that can lead to deep-seated fears of repeating similar experiences in the future

2) Societal pressures of wanting to fit in and conform to certain standards of behavior, appearance, or success. A result of observation or conditioning.

3) Perfectionism – Striving for unrealistic standards of performance in every pursuit can lead to immense pressure and anxiety when you feel any lag from your side

4) Traumatic events – Every experience is different for every person as in same event can elicit different reactions or responses from different people. Any kind of event, be it public humiliation or a repeated criticism in your childhood from your caregiver, that was difficult to cope with can lead to lasting impact. It does not even have to be one event and at times, the circumstances are stretched over a period of time.

It is important to understand here to not judge yourself for feeling or wanting any of this and not blaming yourself for these thoughts or anxiety. Remember to validate your feelings and to not sit long with your thoughts. As in, try to consider it as a thought and separate it from yourself. You might start with “I am having a thought that that situation might have been embarrassing” instead of “I am embarrassing.” What is important here is to first accept this situation, your thought patterns and what you are going through. A lot of times we love to stay in denial about it because it gives us an illusion of reducing our anxiety or stress but in reality, you can actually see the impact in social situations.

This is a tough pill to swallow and it is not easy to go on the path of acceptance but it will definitely start from the path of self – awareness.

Every time you feel that intense fear, after you become more functionable and feel better, try to figure out what were the thoughts that were going on in your head. Somewhere those thoughts might give you a hint about where they are stemming from.

These thoughts such as “I am inherently flawed,” “I’ll do something wrong”, “they will judge me” or “omg that was so embarrassing” can become so ingrained in our minds that they feel like undeniable truths, even though they're just stories we tell ourselves.

Common related issues are mind-reading (it can be helpful to think that we are assuming that others are judging or criticizing us and it actually might not be true), catastrophizing (it is a cycle we go in when we exaggerate the potential consequences of social experiences that we consider as “mistakes”), and black-and-white thinking (viewing social interactions in terms of success or failure). We go in a cycle of self-doubt and anxiety and hyper-focus on these events and every aspect of them.

What I do in these circumstances is think. I think about how I perceive or respond to interactions when I am alone or with people I feel safe around. Those do not feel that daunting, right? So, is it possible that for others our conversations are that way? What if they are not hyper-focusing on every aspect of it? One thing I have realized is we really like graceful, elegant, or sophisticated people who we assume are doing wonderfully in social settings but what is actually having that grace? How many times have you made fun of people of pronouncing a word wrong in public, holding cutlery differently or dancing with their souls or doing what they felt like. It is the ability to let go of another person’s so-called mistake, not mocking them or just letting them be. That is what actually being decent, elegant, sophisticated, and doing it right is about. Well, this is just a personal opinion here, but it might ease some distress in future.

Instead of berating ourselves for our perceived mistakes, what do you think will happen if we offer ourselves the same kindness and understanding that we would offer to a loved one facing similar struggles. All the little and baby steps will definitely help but addressing the actual thought patterns about yourself is the goal. Start from realizing and getting aware about yourself and move towards acceptance by being kind towards yourself and giving yourself time. Use the techniques for relieving yourself from anxiety in the previous blog regularly whichever ones were helpful and its time to get a more balanced and realistic view of yourself.