Exploding the Limitations to Overflowing Joy

Mental Movies

What images play when you consider yourself in social situations? What feelings do you get when you think about reaching out to initiate a connection with someone you would like to get to know? What do you remember about yourself socially throughout your childhood? What would you love to have in your life socially that you currently avoid doing or creating?

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Imagery rescripting is a tool in therapy whereby the therapist supports the individual to create new movies about past experiences. Research is showing this to be beneficial for supporting people who are anxious in social situations because they often have early childhood memories of being bullied, excluded, shamed or humiliated in social situations. New movies are developed with the support of the therapist whereby the individual takes back their power in the social situation to stand up against the bully, to heal the shame associated with the memory or to find the skills to approach a group successfully or find new friends. 

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The reason this is so useful is that the person is soothed for their emotions at the time, heard and understood. They are also provided with the support and skills they need to handle the situations effectively. The brain feels like these needs were actually met even if they weren't. 

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For example, I was working with a client who to the outside world looks confident and at ease socially. She instigates new friendships and provides the glue in her long-term friendships. When you meet her she's warm, charming and lovely to talk with. Yet underneath she rarely feels at ease, even with her closest friends. Together we completed a process in therapy called imagery rescripting. She closes her eyes and takes her mind back to a memory of feeling uncomfortable / shy / sad that she just can't fit in the group. An early memory that sprang to mind was visiting her grandparents place for a weekend. Many extended family were staying for the weekend including her older cousins. 

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The client started to cry as she recalled feeling completely disconnected. That she couldn't connect with anyone. She felt like she was intimidated by her older cousins and remembers her older sibling telling her that they "thought she was boring". Tears stream down her cheeks, she reports tightness in her chest and throat and a huge lump blocking her throat. Then her attention shifts to her grandma. She realises that she could not connect with her Grandma. She knew her grandma was shy but doesn't understand why her Grandma was able to have a good relaitonship with her older cousin but not her. Why couldn't she connect with me? Her heart broke as she realised that she never felt at home here. Despite this being her grandparents house she never felt she could just relax and be herself. She felt anxious, tiptoeing around not wanting to do the wrong thing. She was too timid to go to the kitchen cupboards and felt left out from everything everyone else was doing. 

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Then another picture entered her mind. She remembered her great grandparetns who also lived out the back in a granny flat for the last years of their lives. She struggled with these relationships too - she felt shy and disconnected from them all the while seeing another cousin have a beautiful relationship with her Great Grandma. 

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With her permission, I then asked her to image me as a therapist entering the home then with her while she was a young girl. I sat with her and reflected back that I could see how uncomfortable she felt, how left out and disconnected. How unsafe. I asked her what she needed and she said "for my Grandmother to have a relationship with me". "Why can't she have a relationship with me too". So I explained to her that her Grandma was shy - that they were both shy and that this made it hard for one person to reach out. But I told her that I would show her how she could build a relationship with her Grandma. We talked about how relationships take time, with each person sharing about themselves, finding things in their lives in common. I helped her in the image to go up to her Grandma and tell her about what she was doing at the moment that was fun in her life. She also asked her Grandma if she could help her cook. I told her that they didnt have to talk all the time to grow a friendship they could just do things together on the property. 

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Next, my client imagined internalising all that we had just discussed and pituring herself initiating the relationship with her Grandma - reaching out, giving her warm hugs, being the one that drives the relationship. This helped my client learn new skills for building relationships that she hadn't realised until now. She saw how some of the relationships that were a struggle were because both people were awkward or shy or because she would stand back and wait to be approached rather than approach herself. 

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This wasn't the only insight my client gained from this rescripting. She also felt a complete genuine "who gives a biscuit if I don't get along with my cousins, I don't have to get along with everyone. She let go of needing all of their approval and instead decided she could just enjoy milling around the property, being with the animals, playing in the pool, reading, sitting with her dad or helping out her Grandma. This was incredibly liberating for her. 

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Post event rumination

Another common factor of social anxious people is that related to their experience after a social event. They commonly report feeling like they "have done something wrong". A pit in their stomach or sense of disease about what they might have said that others would dissaprove of. They run through conversations wondering whether they should have said this or that and done this or that. Was I too arrogant, was I too forceful in my opinion, will they think I was crazy? They feel a sense of shame about themselves that they feel others are judging them for something.

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A great antidote for this comes from Nate Zinsser's book The Confident Mind. He teaches elite athletes to develop a strong mindset. He has a great formula that utilises the metaphor of increasing your confidence bank balance by making intentional "bank deposits" and minimising "bank withdrawals". 

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Bank deposits refer to intentionally remembering your successes, little wins, progress and effort, mentally rehearsing them, writing them down daily and consistently. First he suggests identifying your ten biggest successes related to the goal of confidence you desire to achieve. Applying this to social confidence for example you might list "Initiated the relationship with Jo who is now my best friend. Or took the brave step to ask my girlfriend on a date. Or started that new dance class when I didn't know anyone. Or attended a pubic speaking course. 

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Next is about daily habits. Every day you capture one thing that showed you put in effort toward your goal. Eg I said hello to someone I didn't know at work. Everyday you also capture one success such as "Friend asked me to join her for a movie". Everyday you also capture progress toward your goal eg "decided to face my anxiety rather than avoid everyone at lunch when I felt like being alone". 

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Even more importantly with social confidence, Nate suggests immediately replaying a successful moment following a social event. Notice that pit in your stomach of fear that you did something wrong and the urge to play back conersations in your head. Then stop and choose a different replay. Instead reply the one moment in the social interaction that you did well. It could be the courage to talk to someone it could be, a converation that did flow well, it could be that joke you told that everyone laughed at. Replay this in your mind rather than your fear narrative. 

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A feeling of belonging

I want my children to understand that their voice matters, who they are is beautiful, and that they belong everywhere but that they must choose where they feel most connected. Not safe necessarily but connected.

 

There is a magic that seems to happen when you find special people in your life. When we are children, our friendships grow because we are in the same class, our parents are friends, we play on the same sport team, or live next door from one another. As we grow and develop, we will meet all sorts of interesting and wonderful people. We will also meet people with who we simply cannot connect, or who make us feel bad about ourselves when we are around them or who always bring drama into our lives. It's important to see these patterns in our lives because the people we give our love to have a significant impact on our wellbeing, our success and our happiness. 

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Reciprocity

One of the most common schema with which clients present for therapy is the "self-sacrificing schema" whereby they constantly find themselves in non-reciprocal relationships. Always being the one giving - showing up for their friends, holding them emotionally and feeling like they need to rescue and fix others so that they can have a better life. 

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Understanding Experiential Avoidance

"I don't want to". The dread of approaching people that I don't know creates a feeling of awkward anxiety as I anticipate being unable to keep a relaxed conversation flowing. This results in the urge to avoid them - not look them in the eye, not say their name or just completely avoid the approach. So instead of building relationships and connection, I avoid it. Anxiety relieved. Momentarily. But of course, the relationship with this particular person never grows, never gets easier, because there is no connection and information sharing being built. Nothing to draw on next time.

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Instead, I have now committed to approaching rather than avoiding despite these feelings. The awkward anxious feeling does not mean anything about how I will actually go connecting. It is just a yucky feeling in the pit of my tummy. It makes me feel "off centre" and a little flighty. It makes me deflect by making jokes rather than hold a sincere conversation. So instead, now I focus on noticing the feelings of nervousness, breathing into them and resisting the urge to race full steam ahead into humour and deflection.

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One of the best things I read recently was to "aim for connection not impression". Connection means asking with curiosity about the person. Take the focus off the self and onto connecting with the human in front of me. I do not need to impress them in any way. I do not need to get them to like me. I do not need to be interesting, or funny, or intelligent or smart. Or the kindest person they know. They do not need to walk away gushing about me. Just a small momentary building of connection. Maybe we will hit it off. Or maybe not. Maybe this will be a wonderful new person in my life. Or maybe we will have nothing in common or be on a different page in life. It doesn't matter. Because life is not a popularity contest. It's not the most popular people who are the happiest, rather the one's with people in their lives they love, who know they are loved in return, and who enjoy regular connection with like-minded humans.