Question

I’m working in a field where I have to meet with lots of people and it doesn’t really suit my personality.
Sometimes even making eye-contact can be too much for me. I get very self-conscious about making a mistake in front of my clients. So much so that now I get anxious and afraid to even meet people.
Is there a way to get rid of these symptoms?

Answer

Social phobia (Social Anxiety) is known for the fear, anxiety, nervousness and avoidance behavior to certain social situations it causes in people. Talking to strangers, giving a speech in front of an audience and other various social settings tend to trigger this phobia.
Social anxiety, or social phobia, is known to be one of the most prominent psychological disorders in the U.S. and many other developing and developed nations across the world. Some people suffering from this condition find themselves unable to perform in front of an audience and sometimes even find themselves not able to write down words in fear of others reading it.

Social phobia doesn’t disappear easily.
It is not a simple matter of personality or being shy. There is a part of your brain controlling the emotions and specifically the part in charge of the feeling of anxiety. Social phobia is known to trigger this part of your brain. The reason why social phobia is currently more prevalent is because society has reached the highest population densities in history and people meet more people than ever before. In the past, it would have even been hard for one person to meet 1000 people in the course of one’s lifetime. However, now we meet numerous people from workplaces, schools, neighborhoods and even overseas.

Social phobia’s symptoms come as conditioned reflexes.
The symptoms arise not only from the condition of meeting someone but even from the thought of meeting them.

To overcome social phobia, you must start by breaking down the minds you have.
Of course medication therapy and behavioral therapies are available but most of the time they are known to yield temporary results.

Then, first you must acknowledge in your mind that ‘meeting people is okay.’
To overcome with the mind, you must find the cause of why you are reluctant to meet people by looking back at yourself. Once you do, you will find your current self to be just an accumulation of your past selves.
Social phobia is likely to appear by an accumulation of your past self that left a trace in your mind to cause the current anxiety disorder.

Take a moment to carefully look back on the life you have lived, and if you can get rid of that cause through Subtraction Meditation then you can definitely overcome social phobia itself.