so as long as you're trying to solve that problem in the game that the anxiety is playing for you it's like you know playing against the house in a casino it's a game you're designed to lose how do I get out of this thought Loop when I am quiet am I being boring and when I'm talking am I being annoying okay if we think about this for a second this is brilliant by the way so let's start by just understanding you know where does the root of this come from right so like do you guys
see how this thought am I being boring like comes from a presumption that people don't like you or that you're not delivering value and this too comes with a presumption that you're not delivering value like you guys see how both of these questions even though the behavior is the exact opposite like they share the same roote so this is really important to understand so a lot of times people think that their anxiety is dependent on a particular thought right so like my mind produces the thought for me am I being boring by being quiet or
am I being annoying by talking and so we what we do is we focus on the content of the anxiety what is like the worry that we have right am I being boring am I being annoying like both of those are the content of the mind but if you kind of think about it that doesn't make any logical sense because if you're worried about being Bor boring the the solution to that is to talk and then if you start talking theoretically that problem should be fixed you're no longer boring but you wind up being your
M your mind actually tells you now that we're talking am I being annoying maybe I should be more quiet so from a logical perspective and from a thinking perspective it's like a lose lose situation there's no way you can win because your mind is producing for you thoughts and worries and concerns which theoretically should lead to a particular Behavior or solution but even if you engage in that behavioral solution you're still screwed so like how on Earth do you deal with that and the key thing here is to go back to the root that produces
these thoughts okay so like this is where you know as long as you feel internally emotionally that you are not going to like be pleasant to be around if you are insecure about you know what value you bring to like other people's like Social Service like social like situations if you can't really like serve to be like socially useful to other people as long as you hold that belief that belief will spawn off thoughts no matter the circumstance does that make sense so it's kind of interesting because like a lot of people will will start
they they'll try to solve the individual thought but like what this this picture beautifully illustrates is brilliant right is that you can try to solve as many problems as you want to your your mind if you're social anxious is still is like never going to be appeased right when I'm quiet am I being boring oh talk more and then when you're talking you're like oh my God am I being annoying be quiet more you can pingpong back and forth through this as much as you want to and you'll never fix it so what do you
do about it what you do is first of all recognize the process that your mind is going to like give you these thoughts kind of no matter what and as long as you're playing at the level of thought you're never going to fix it and this is why people get stuck right it becomes a you start looping cuz you're like bouncing around up here instead what you need to do is go down to the root of it tell yourself notice first of all oh my mind is doing that thing again where it's like behaving at
an intellectual level but this intellectual content of my mind is being fueled by the emotion and so instead of trying to solve that problem up here just ask yourself how do I feel right now what is the emotional energy that is driving this anxiety and once you start working at that level like so you may discover for example oh like I'm just afraid that people aren't going to like me and I'm not confident about myself because I've been in like isolation for a year and I feel like socially Rusty I'm concerned that these people might
not like me and then you can kind of sit with that and it's like it's not about a particular manifestation it's sort of like okay like I feel afraid that people don't like me and this is why it's useful to work with someone like a therapist or coach or something like that right if you really have social anxiety I'd recommend seeing you know a clinician if you have like a diagnosed social anxiety and then you know once you start sitting with those feelings working on that underlying emotion then what you can do is like as
the emotion kind kind of starts to like empty out and decompress the thoughts above will start to crumble so it's kind of interesting but like it's It's tricky because we sort of think like okay how do I deal with this thought Loop because it keeps on looping up there and instead of like dealing with the RO loop it's like you know how do I start move uh how do I stop moving in this Loop well like the answer to stop moving in the loop is like you have to like empty your gas can right because
as long as you've got fuel your mind will Loop in that way those rational thoughts those logical thoughts those anxious thoughts will keep on looping and you will keep on trying to problem solve okay and that problem solving will never actually lead to well I'm not I guess I can't say never but it will it's not really consistently going to lead to anything whereas the real money is in actually is in dealing with the underlying emotion that's fueling the anxiety okay so a a good example of this so we have a we have a a
a video entirely about this on Dr K's guides so this is the anxiety module okay just real quick so there's by the way there's a video actually on thought Loops so if you guys are there's but that's not the one I'm thinking about this is what I call feeding the Beast okay so sometimes in our minds there are actually a couple of videos about this there there are a couple ways that we deal with anxiety and one way that we deal with anxiety is by like trying to rationally solve that problem right we can try
to solve the problem of when I'm quiet am I being boring and and when I'm talking am I am I being annoying so as long as you're trying to solve that problem in the game that the anxiety is playing for you it's like you know playing against the house in a casino it's a game you're designed to lose because it's not an intellectual problem so you can come up with as many intellectual Solutions as you want to and it's not going to work this is the other problem with anxiety right is because we have a
bunch of like five heads out there that are like okay I just need to dot dot dot I figured everything out like I just need to develop confidence I just need to do this I just need to do this I figured everything out up here and they try to do it and it never works it's because all of your energy is being spent on sort of like the symptom as opposed to the cause so get down to the roots of your insecurity or your lack of confidence and notice in that moment instead of playing the
game with the anxiety up top notice like what am I actually feeling right now like where does this insecurity actually come from right and as you kind of do that work as you start to notice oh this is just my anxiety producing all of these thoughts and worries it's not even me that's another useful technique that you can do is notice what is your anxiety versus you and you're like oh that's just my anxiety it's like no big deal like it's going to act up again and you can even anticipate it so the next time
you go into a social situation you know okay so my anxiety is going to start producing thoughts I know it sounds weird but as you anticipate it and then the anxiety comes you don't fight it because remember most of the time we try to fight anxiety which just feeds the loop because you're adding uh gas to your gas tank so instead what you want to do is take a step back and just be like okay we knew this was coming oh wow this anxiety is really powerful today is it so powerful that I need to
leave or can I give it like half an hour and hopefully I can start to have fun when you start dealing with your anxiety like this you kind of take the steam out of it you take the energy out of it it'll kind of calm down and the thoughts will actually stop on their own right so someone's saying you have to fight the idea that you need to demonstrate value to others I think that's the right sentiment I wouldn't encourage fighting it right so I wouldn't encourage like I know it's an interesting Nuance here but
I would notice that that is a false belief so I I think generally speaking an fighting your mind and anxiety makes things worse for most people as they've learned they may conquer it for a time but it comes roaring back the next day so I'd encourage people to just notice oh like there's a part of me that feels like I need to demonstrate my value to others it feels that very strongly I feel like super inadequate and I feel like a waste of space unless I demonstrate my value to other people and then you don't
go and Bully that part of you you're not like screw you believe in yourself dumbass you should believe in yourself more why are you so stupid start believing in yourself more you know it's like you got to be careful there so you can conquer it for a time but generally speaking my experience has been that encouraging people to notice it is actually like more potent right so it's it's interesting It's Tricky gets tricky there is value to sometimes fighting and overcoming your anxiety though like so it's it's just like generally speaking people tend to know
how to do that relatively well and it's this part that people generally speaking need to learn
