<a href="https://robertfmullen.com/2023/11/30/regenerating-our-self-esteem/" rel="bookmark">Regenerating Our Self-Esteem

Regenerating Our Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is mindfulness of our value and significance to ourselves, society, and the world. It is the recognition and acceptance of our flaws and assets. It defines how we think about ourselves, how we think others perceive us, and how we process and present that information.

Explicit and Implicit Self-Esteem

Persons experiencing social anxiety have significantly lower implicit and explicit self-esteem relative to healthy controls. Explicit is the conscious expression of our self-worth, appreciation, and acceptance. Implicit self-esteem is our nonconscious self-appraisal, often expressed by our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs).

Maslow’s Hierarchy

Certain preconditions must be satisfied for healthy psychological development, including adequate sleep, security and safety, familial support, and a healthy environment. Social anxiety is the consequence of negative self-appraisal stemming from childhood disturbance, which can subvert particular biological, physiological, and emotional support.

A pioneer of positive psychology, Abraham Maslow‘s hierarchy of optimal human development contained five categories: physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. While he later expanded the list, we are concerned about the preconditions that form our level of self-esteem. The hierarchy establishes the importance of satisfying these conditions for optimal development and how they complement and influence each other.

The pyramid on the left portrays healthy development. The one on the right reveals how unmet satisfactions imperil other needs within the hierarchy. It is worth noting that Maslow’s theory is based on Western culture and does not necessarily fit with different customs and traditions.

Our development within the hierarchy is not purely linear but fluid and individualized, subject to experience and environment. A child will have difficulty learning if they are hungry. Without responsible parenting, they are unlikely to feel safe.

Physiological Needs

Physiological needs are the basic things we need for survival and healthy development. They include air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sleep, and health. Deprivation of these disrupts our natural growth and impacts our core beliefs, which are more rigid in SAD persons because we tend to store information consistent with negativity, ignoring evidence that contradicts it.

Safety and Security

Childhood disturbances impact our feelings of safety and security. Our formative years need order, protection, and stability, and these securities stem from the parental unit. Any upheaval can generate feelings of abandonment, detachment, neglect, or exploitation, causing distrust of family, authority, and or relationships.

Love and Belongingness

Love and belongingness describe our physiological and emotional need for interpersonal and social relationships. We are societal beings; our fundamental need for connectivity is hardwired into our brains. For those of us experiencing SAD, personal attachment is challenging because of our fear and avoidance of relationships and social interaction.

Human interconnectedness is a critical component of mental and physical health. Research has shown that healthy social contact boosts our immune system and protects our brain from neurodegenerative diseases. Positive interpersonal contact triggers the neurotransmission of chemical hormones that consolidate our self-esteem while enhancing learning, concentration, pleasure, and motivation.

Self-Esteem

Our sense of self-worth and appreciation gauges our level of self-esteem. Mindfulness of our character strengths, virtues, and accomplishments is the catalyst. While it enjoys respect and reciprocation from others (status and reputation), self-esteem is not defined by the approval of others. Otherwise, it would be labeled other-esteem.

Any number of factors can impact our self-esteem, including our environment, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, and education. Family, colleagues, teachers, and influential others contribute substantially.

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Healthy Philautia

Philautia is the Greek dichotomy of self-love. At one end of the spectrum is the excessive love of self (narcissism) and, at the other, the recognition and appreciation of self (self-esteem).

Narcissism is a condition in which people function with an inflated and irrational sense of importance, often expressed by haughtiness or arrogance. It is the need for excessive attention and admiration, masking an sense of inferiority and inadequacy. Although we may be uncomfortable with the label, social anxiety carries an unhealthy self-centeredness that approaches the definition of narcissism.

Healthy philautia recognizes our value and potential. It realizes that we are necessary to this life and of incomprehensible worth. By embracing ourselves, warts and all, we open ourselves to sharing our authenticity.

To feel joy and fulfillment at self-being is the experience of healthy philautia. Self-esteem is a prerequisite to loving others. If we cannot appreciate ourselves, we cannot wholly cherish another. It is unfeasible to give away something we do not possess.

Regeneration

To regenerate means to renew or restore something damaged or lost. Because of the disruption in our optimal development, many positive self-qualities that construct our self-esteem are latent or dormant – underdeveloped or suspended.

These self-qualities (e.g., confidence, reliance, compassion, and other self-hyphenates) are damaged but not lost. Disruption interrupts productivity. It does not destroy it. Like stimulating the unexercised muscle in our arm or leg, we can regenerate our self-esteem.

Goal and Objectives

The primary goal of recovery from social anxiety is the moderation of our fears and apprehensions. In self-empowerment, it is the rebuilding of our self-esteem and motivation. We execute these goals through a three-pronged approach.

Replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
Produce rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to overwhelm the negative abundance of our neural network.
Regenerate our self-esteem through mindfulness of our assets.

Symptoms

Aaron Beck, the pioneer of cognitive-behavioral therapy, maintained that social anxiety provokes feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and unworthiness. The concept of undesirability revealed itself in our SAD recovery workshops. Until we commit to recovery, we continue to be manipulated by these destructive self-beliefs.

We struggle to build healthy relationships due to difficulties with intimacy, trusting partners, and establishing personal boundaries. We convince ourselves we are incompetent and socially inadequate.

We compare ourselves unfavorably to others. Our expectations of criticism, ridicule, and rejection cause us to avoid personal affinity and collegiality.

Reframing

By reframing, we identify our self-esteem issues and revise our perspective on how we experience and respond to them. Positive reframing turns a negative perspective into a positive or neutral one. There are always multiple perspectives to any situation. While we may not control everything that happens, we always control how we react and respond. If we have a choice to be positive and happy, then it is illogical not to take advantage of the opportunity.

So, although there may be justification for negative thinking, it is in our interest to reframe our thinking to accelerate and consolidate the positive restructuring of our neural network. Our negative thoughts are unhealthy and nonproductive. Experts agree that positive reframing is critical for emotional well-being.

Reframing addresses our negativity in general, while rational response focuses on our situational fears and apprehensions.

Rational Response

A rational response is a logical, self-affirming counter to our fears and ANTs. Automatic negative thoughts are our immediate, involuntary emotional expressions that occur when challenged in a particular situation. They are the unpleasant, self-defeating things we tell ourselves that define who we are, who we think we are, and who we think others think we are. They are borne of our core and intermediate beliefs and sustained by our negative self-appraisal. (“No one will talk to me.” “I’ll do something stupid.” “I’m a loser.”)

The logical counters to our ANTs are rational responses or ARTs (automatic rational thoughts). For example, in response to the situational fear of adverse criticism, the corresponding ANT might be, “I am inadequate and don’t belong here.” Rational responses could include: “I am entitled to be here as much as anyone.” “I am valuable and significant.” “I am equal to anyone here.”

Identify the Problem

To reframe or rationally respond to a fear or apprehension, we must determine its trajectory.

1. We identify the situation where our self-esteem is an issue. Where are we? Who is present? What is causing our distress?

2. We unmask our fears and apprehensions. What is problematic for us in the situation? How do we feel (physically, intellectually, emotionally)? What is our specific concern or worry? Are we afraid of rejection? Are we worried we will say something stupid? Are we concerned people will criticize or ridicule us?

3. We identify our corresponding ANTs. These are the involuntary, emotional, self-defeating expressions of our fears – the self-defeating things we tell ourselves. “No one will talk to me.” I’ll say something stupid.” “I’m a loser.” She’ll reject me.”

4. We examine and analyze our fears and corresponding ANTs. What are the causes, thoughts, and images precipitating them? How do we counter their illogicality?

5. Once we have examined, analyzed, and accepted the self-destructive and unreasonable nature of our fears and corresponding ANTs, we reframe or rationally respond to them.

Our thoughts and beliefs might be positive or negative. They might be rational, based on reason or fact. Our fears and apprehensions may also be based on facts and experience. They are not reasonable, however, but created on false assumptions.

Moderating our self-esteem and motivation issues is best accomplished in a workshop environment where we can identify and examine the challenges through personal introspection, memory work, journalling, role-playing, and other tools and techniques that help us regenerate our self-esteem.

Even so, we can practice certain tools and strategies on our own.

Write Your Character Resume

A character resume is a compilation of our positive qualities, achievements, and memories. Mindfully retrieving and cataloging these qualities compels us to embrace our value, confirming we are desirable, consequential, and worthy. What goes on our character resume? Anything and everything that activates a positive response including our strengths, achievements, contributions, personal milestones, talents, and charitable deeds.

Character Strengths, Virtues, and Attributes. Due to our negative self-analysis, we tend to repress, misplace, and forget our inherent and developed assets. They are not erased or lost, however, but compartmentalized from our active consciousness. Renewed mindfulness of these strengths and incorporating them into our daily lives help regenerate our self-esteem.

Positive Autobiography lists our successes, achievements, contributions, personal milestones, talents, charitable deeds, and service to others. Recollecting and recognizing our accomplishments encourages us to embrace the extraordinariness of our lives.

Positive Personal Affirmations PPAs are self-motivating, empowering statements that help us focus on goals, challenge negative, self-defeating beliefs, and reprogram our subconscious minds.

Self-Esteem Self-Analysis. What do we like about ourselves mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and socially?

Set Boundaries

Boundaries establish the standard of treatment to which we believe we are entitled. They define what behaviors towards us are acceptable or unacceptable. Boundaries protect us from invasions of our space, feelings, limitations, and expectations. They allow us to enforce our identity, empower our goals and objectives, and prevent others from manipulating, exploiting, or taking advantage of us.

Knowing our boundaries comes from a healthy sense of self-awareness. Securing them takes self-confidence and a keen recognition of our value and significance. Healthy emotional boundaries value our feelings and needs.

Our social anxiety provokes us to anticipate criticism and ridicule. We obsess over what others think and say about us. Our desire to be accepted makes us reticent to assert our needs and conditions for security and happiness.

Our incapacity to establish, develop, and maintain relationships creates the fear that boundaries limit the possibility of human connection. We worry that self-assertion will bring rejection and isolation. Our negative self-appraisal convinces us we are unworthy.

Rather than say no, we overextend ourselves and put the needs of others above our own, which causes us to feel inferior, resentful, and exploited.

Boundaries are essential to all healthy relationships. Boundaries bring us closer rather than separating ourselves from others because we set clear understandings of personal values. Defining acceptable behavior provides a sense of communication and self-assurance. When we set boundaries, we determine how we live our lives rather than allowing others to decide.

Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms are temporary safeguards against situations that challenge our conscious minds. They are unconscious and automatic psychological responses designed to protect us from our fears and apprehensions.

We overcompensate, deny, repress, and rationalize. We project our irrational behaviors onto others rather than confront them, and we displace our guilt by kicking the dog.

Cognitive Distortions are exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that perpetuate our anxiety and depression. We twist reality to reinforce or justify our toxic thoughts and behaviors. Social anxiety paints an inaccurate picture of the self in the world with others.

The number of cognitive distortions ranges substantially. Thirteen are particularly adept at subverting our self-esteem, including:

Polarized thinking. In polarized thinking, we perceive things as absolute – black or white. There is no middle ground, no compromise. We are either brilliant or abject failures. Our friends are for us or against us. We refuse to give people the benefit of the doubt. Worse than our anxiety about criticism is our self-judgment. We must be broken and inept if we are not flawless and masterful. There is no room for mistakes or mediocrity.

Filtering. When we filter, we focus on the negative aspects of our lives, fixating on situations and memories that supporting our defeatist self-appraisal. This creates an emotional imbalance due to excluding healthy thoughts and behaviors. We view ourselves, the world, and our future through an unforgiving lens.

Emotional Reasoning. Emotional reasoning is when we make judgments and decisions based only on our feelings – relying on our emotions or instincts over objective evidence. At the root of this cognitive distortion is the belief that what we feel must be true. If we feel like a loser, then we must be a loser. If we feel incompetent, then we must be incapable. If we make a mistake, we must be stupid.

Self-Labeling. When we label an individual or group, we reduce them to a single, usually negative, characteristic or descriptor based on a single event or behavior. When we self-label, we sustain our negative self-appraisal. Negative self-labeling supports our sense of incompetence and undesirability, and our subsequent behaviors often support those labels.

We are consumed and conditioned by negative words. Some of us use the exact destructive words over and over again. The more we hear, read, or speak a word or phrase, the more power it has over us. It is not just the words we say out loud in criticism and conversations.

The self-annihilating words we silently call ourselves are even more destructive. Would we use these words against a colleague or loved one? If we wouldn’t say them to someone else, why would we say them to ourselves? Words have power.

Understanding how we use defense mechanisms as subconscious strategies to avoid facing certain truths is crucial to recovery. Our compulsion to twist the truth to validate our negative self-beliefs is formidable. It is vital to understand how these distortions sustain our social anxiety and depression.

Self-Appreciation

Self-appreciation is recognizing and enjoying our good qualities, efforts, and achievements. We have been beating ourselves up for our condition for too long. We deserve to experience the pride and satisfaction that complements our significance and positive individuality. Self-appreciation dramatically regenerates our self-esteem while accelerating and consolidating neural restructuring.

Give yourself credit for making positive changes. Recognize all the good things you accomplish daily. Appreciate yourself by doing something nice for yourself every day. We are in charge of our emotional well-being and quality of life. We are responsible for the regeneration of our self-esteem. Self-esteem is the catalyst for self-appreciation. In reciprocation, self-appreciation consolidates self-esteem. We take care of ourselves to take care of others. We embrace our worth and potential to champion them in others.

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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing neuroscience and psychology including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.

Underrated, Misunderstood, and Neglected

November 16, 2023Anxiety, Behavior, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Self-Empowerment, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorderDepression, LGBTQ+, Positive Psychology, Recovery, Self-esteemRobert F. Mullen, Ph.D.

Social Anxiety

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The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided apply to most emotional malfunctions, including depression, substance abuse, generalized anxiety, and self-esteem and motivation issues. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.

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Dual Perspectives on Shame in Re covery

Underrated, Misunderstood,
and Neglected

Lifesfinewhine
November 11, 2023
Robert F Mullen, PhD

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is culturally identifiable by our persistent fear and avoidance of social interaction and performance situations, which cause us to miss the opportunities that connect us with the world.

Notwithstanding our desire to recover, our feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, undesirability, and worthlessness convince us that we are not only broken but irreparable and unworthy of the effort.

Recovery is Transformation

The difference between pre-recovery and in-recovery is immeasurable. Social anxiety steals our autonomy, hopes, and self-esteem. Recovery regains what has been stolen or lost. It realizes our strengths, virtues, and attributes. We become stronger and more confident, especially in controlling our lives and claiming our rights as valuable and consequential contributors to society.

Recovery is a transformation – a rigorous and dramatic change in form and nature. Through proactive neuroplasticity, we change the form and configuration of our neural network. Thought and behavior self-modification subverts the destructive nature of our negative self-appraisal. Mindfulness of our assets and possibilities regenerates our self-esteem. Hence, our form and nature transform.

This writing contains thoughts and observations from my work with clients in recovery and my personal bouts with social anxiety. The quotes are from workshop graduates.

The ‘Neglected’ Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety is ostensibly the most underrated and misunderstood emotional affliction. Nicknamed the ‘neglected anxiety disorder,’ therapists avoid it due to difficulty distinguishing its symptoms and identifying specific etiological and risk factors. Few understand it, and even fewer know how to address it effectively. One has to experience social anxiety to recognize its destructive severity.

Anxiety is a normal facet of life, and the typical individual accords it appropriate deference. Those of us experiencing SAD personify our symptoms, dramatize them, and obsess about their negative implications. We create mountains out of molehills, spending our days in tortuous anticipation of our projected adverse outcomes. We beat ourselves up daily for our perceived incompetence and inability to function socially.

We feel shame for our condition because society inherently fears and loathes what it refuses to understand. Shame is painful and incapacitating. It makes us feel powerless and acutely diminished. It makes us want to hide and become invisible. It drives us to withdraw from the world and avoid human connection.

One client shares, “I spent high school trying to hide in every dark corner with a book in my face. I never once ate lunch in four years, and never once went to the bathroom in four years at my high school, for fear of having to interact with people.”

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Symptoms and Traits

SAD attacks on all fronts, delivering mental confusion, emotional instability, physical dysfunction, and spiritual malaise. Emotionally, we are depressed and lonely. In social situations, we sweat, tremble, mumble, and hyperventilate. Mentally, our thoughts are distorted and irrational. Spiritually, we define ourselves as inadequate and insignificant. Many of us suffer from depression and gamble with substance abuse to blunt the discomfort of our condition.

Our social interactions are clumsy, small talk inelegant, and attempts at humor embarrassing. We self-prophesize criticism, ridicule, and rejection. SAD is repressive and intractable, imposing self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. It establishes its authority through defeatist measures produced by inaccurate and unsound interpretations of reality. “Anxiety has crippled me, locked me in a cage and has become my master.” ̶ Elizabeth G.

We fear the unknown and unexplored. We crave companionship but shun intimacy, expecting to be deemed undesirable. We circle the block repeatedly before a social event to bolster our courage. More often than not, we end up in the bar around the corner. It is not our situational fears that destroy our lives; it is our ‘inability’ to confront them.

Childhood Disturbance

Cumulative evidence that childhood disturbance is a primary causal factor in emotional instability has been well-established. While the word ‘disturbance’ generates images of overt abuse, any number of things define it. Parents may be controlling or unable to provide emotional validation. Perhaps we are subject to sibling bullying or a broken home.

Disturbance can be intentional or accidental, real or imagined. (The suggestibility of the pre-adolescent is legendary.) A toddler whose parental quality time is interrupted by a phone call can form a core belief of abandonment. SAD senses the emotional vulnerability and onsets at adolescence, often lingering in our system for years before manifesting.

It’s Not Our Fault

It is essential to recognize that our social anxiety is not our fault nor the result of aberrant behavior. We did not ask for it. We did not make it happen. It happened to us. We are not accountable for the hand we have been dealt.

We are, however, responsible for how we play the cards in our hand. The onus of recovery is on us. Experts supply the tools, but we must take them out of the shed and put them to work.

Undoubtedly, this sociological model conflicts with moral models that claim our behaviors are responsible for onset or that it is God’s punishment for sin. Those beliefs are sadly misinformed.

Acceptance

Social connectedness is a central requirement for emotional well-being. In unambiguous terms, the desire for acceptance is at the heart of our condition, but our social avoidance and fear of intimacy challenge our ability to establish, develop, and maintain healthy relationships. We feel trapped in a vicious circle, restricted from living a productive life, alienated from our peers, and isolated from our families. Bryce S. writes: “I find myself very scared to open up, be honest, be intimate, and trust people … I guess I realized I’m starved for genuine connections.”

Cognitive Bias

We store information consistent with our negative beliefs. Even when inaccurate, they define how we think about ourselves, how we think others think about us, and how we process that information. By declining to question these beliefs, we sustain a cognitive bias that compels us to misinterpret experience. Even when we accept the irrationality of our fears and apprehensions, their emotional impact is so significant that our attitudes, rules, and assumptions run roughshod over any healthy, rational response.

SAD in Recovery

How do we recover? We exponentially erode SAD’s negativity by compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. We counter our fears and anxieties by rationally responding to the automatic negative thoughts perpetuating them. We identify and process our defense mechanisms – those irrational thought patterns that twist our thinking and paint a distorted picture of ourselves and our world. We recognize that our learned helplessness, hopelessness, undesirability, and worthlessness are SAD-induced falsities.

Proactive Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is evidence of our brain’s constant adaptation to stimuli. Scientists refer to the process as structural remodeling of the brain. It’s what makes learning and registering new experiences possible. All information notifies our neural network to realign, generating a correlated change in behavior and perspective.

What is significant is our ability to dramatically accelerate and consolidate learning by compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. The deliberate, repetitive neural input of positive information (DRNI) empowers us to transform our thoughts and behaviors, creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities. Proactive neuroplasticity is not psychology but hard science. They share credit for recovery.

Goal and Objectives

The primary goal of recovery from social anxiety is the moderation of our fears and anxieties. We achieve this through a three-pronged approach.

Replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
Produce rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to overwhelm the negative abundance of our neural network.
Regenerate our self-esteem through mindfulness of our assets.

A one-size-fits-all recovery strategy cannot sufficiently address individual complexity. We are better served by integrating multiple traditional and non-traditional approaches developed through client trust, cultural assimilation, and therapeutic innovation. Our environment, heritage, conflicts, and associations reflect our wants, choices, and aspirations. If they are not given serious consideration, then we are not appropriately valued.

A coalescence of science, psychology, and philosophy is essential to capture the diversity of human thought and experience. The science of proactive neuroplasticity aids in restructuring our neural network. Cognitive and behavioral mechanisms help us replace or overcome toxic thoughts and behaviors. Positive psychologies focus on reclaiming our strengths, virtues, and attributes. Philosophy, existentially defined, welcomes religious and spiritual insight.

The recovery process is theoretically simple but challenging due to the long-term commitment. We cannot replace self-destructive motivations and actions overnight. We are emotionally averse to change, and human physiology is hard-wired to oppose anything jeopardizing its equilibrium. Our brain’s inertia senses and repels change, and our basal ganglia resist modifying behavior patterns. That’s why habits are hard to break and resolutions challenging to maintain.

But change is overtly doable, and that’s the message here. Recovery works, and the transformation is extraordinary. “It is one of the best investments I have made in myself, and I will continue to improve and benefit from it for the rest of my life.” – Nick P.

Behavior modification is a concerted process. Regenerating our self-esteem requires intense introspection and cognitive comprehension. Neural restructuring demands a tedious regimen that fails to deliver immediate tangible results, causing us to readily concede defeat in this era of instant gratification.

However, once we start down the path, our capacity for transformation grows exponentially. All learning and experience notify our neural network to realign, generating a continuous and correlated change in behavior and perspective. A comprehensive recovery program provides the tools and techniques. The decision to utilize them is on us.

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Lifesfinewhine is a trendsetting Canadian website offering valuable insight into mental health issues. Site producer, Pooja, was diagnosed with depression and social anxiety as a teenager. Research and self-reflection have given her a better understanding of mental health illnesses as well as the stigma that surrounds the topic.

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The Challenges of Diagnostic Labeling

November 7, 2023Anxiety, Bipolar, Depression, Mental Health, Psychology, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorderLGBTQ+, Positive PsychologyRobert F. Mullen, Ph.D.

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This reposts an article recently published on Where the Light Gets In. The conventional pathographic model of mental health focuses on the diagnosis rather than the individual, which reduces us to a label. It is crucial to impress upon the client that they are not defined by their diagnoses but by their character strengths, virtues, and attributes. The Wellness Model of Mental Health recognizes that we do not recover from distress by focusing on our defects and deficiencies but on our strengths and assets.

When we label individuals or groups, we reduce them to a single, usually negative, characteristic or descriptor based on an event or behavior. As a result, we view them (or ourselves) through the label and filter out evidence that contradicts that stereotype. Labeling by diagnoses has a similar outcome.

Arbitrarily evaluating someone based on an isolated incidents or behavior is likely an inaccurate representation of that individual. One negative behavior or incident does not define someone’s character. Rather than focus on a label, it is more authentic to value the positive contributions of the person or group. We can then relate with compassionate insight, recognizing the diversity of human thought and experience.

Additionally, attempting to distinguish symptoms and identifying specific etiological and risk factors in emotional malfunction leads to speculation, errors, and misdiagnosis. This likely results in faulty treatment programs and adverse medications.

It is important to recognize that the person experiencing an emotional malfunction knows more about its personal impact than their diagnostician or therapist. This does not imply that error is inevitable, although it happens often with social anxiety disorder. It just posits the possibility. A healthy collaboration of client awareness and a doctor patient mutual dynamic is crucial to proper evaluation. In the wise words of Hippocrates, the pioneer of modern medicine. “If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.”

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Five to one, one in five. No one here gets out alive…

Margaret
November 3, 2023
Where the Light Gets In

The good days are finally outweighing the bad. And it’s been a long time coming.

I don’t doubt the role medication plays in this… in fact, I’d go as far as to say they’re probably the only reason my mood remains relatively stable. In a pre-emptive strike, my medication was increased recently.

I say “pre-emptive,” but in truth, I’d noticed the beginnings of a wobble. I’ve essentially re-entered the world as an actual adulting adult again. That’s not without its pressures. I didn’t really want to hang around and find out if weebles wobble enough that they eventually do fall down, so I did the only sensible thing and went back to my psych team to tell them that I was under a bit more stress than I’d previously been and I’d like to protect myself against the impact of that and the upcoming winter months. I had enough niggly signs that they agreed it was best to up the dose and add in some extra support.

To some, that might seem cowardly or lazy. Why should I think that just because I’m dealing with normal life stressors, that warrants upping my medication? Well, because I know my own limits. I know that whilst my mood wasn’t deteriorating, there is absolutely the potential for it to do so as I emerge into the world again.

Am I under any more pressure than anyone else? No. Am I, for whatever reason, less able to cope with those pressures than most people… yes. I recognize that. I accept it. And for the sake of my family, I have to be accountable for my own emotional and mental wellbeing.

I have deliberately shied away from talking about labels and diagnoses. This is the one area I really struggle with because it feels like I have more letters after my name than I can even count.

The one I struggle most with is “bipolar.” That’s a hefty label to carry around.

When you’re given a diagnosis, most psychiatrists are so risk-averse that nobody ever actually removes a previous diagnosis from your notes, even if there are questions over it.

When you’re given a diagnosis, most psychiatrists are so risk-averse that nobody ever actually removes a previous diagnosis from your notes, even if there are questions over it. Even if they don’t believe it fits. Even if there isn’t enough evidence for it to stand anymore.

Bipolar is the one I hate with a fervour matched only by my hatred of Nigel Farage. In the same breath that I was given the diagnosis, I was told that the condition has a one in five mortality rate, and that’s why I was being kept such a close eye on.

That’s a terrifying statistic to live with. I have a higher chance of dying from the illness I have than if I’d been diagnosed with some cancers.

True to form, this diagnosis simply fuelled my fear and anxiety. And when I’m anxious, I obsess. The intrusive thoughts ramp up and become harder to manage.

In the wake of being told those figures, I became sure that The Doors song “Five to One” was prophetic. That the lyrics (I refer you to this cleverly titled blog…) were a precursor to a fate that I was powerless to avoid. Despite the fact that being one of the four in five is statistically more likely, I convinced myself I’d been given a death sentence. And so, that one line in the song played on a loop in my head. It went round and round so often in my head that there was barely any room for anything else.

I cursed the doctor for their thoughtless delivery. I cursed a God I didn’t even believe in for his cruelty. I grieved for a life I was now sure would be cut short. I was waiting for the death knell to sound, and yet, somehow, it felt as though it was ringing in my ears every single day. Except that the death knell was clearly Jim Morrison in this case.

Why do I hate the label of “bipolar” so much? Well, because I feel like it doesn’t fit. It feels like a lazy way of neatly packaging up a whole truckload of trauma into one nice, neat little word, It feels like a medical cop-out.

The same doctor who delivered the death knell also told me that “bipolar disorder is the closest thing the psychiatric world has to high blood pressure. They know what medications work, the know how to control it and what works without exception” – except that’s pure bollocks.

I say it’s bollocks because there is no clinical test for the disorder… nothing in your blood that can be measured, nothing in a brain scan that will be evident. There is not a single medical marker other than your psychiatric evaluation – which isn’t so much an evaluation as a run through your life history.

I’ve never met a male with the diagnosis, although I’m aware they do exist. What I have seen, however, are scores of women with histories of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse with the diagnosis. I’ve seen dozens of women who are untreated peri or full-blown menopausal with the diagnosis.

And it leaves me wondering if the label is a cop-out for writing a woman off without actually hearing her.

I’ve variously been told in my life that I suffer from psychotic depression, that I have Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (having someone tell you that your personality is a disorder is pretty shit too by the way…), that I have OCD traits, anxiety (okay, this one I agree with). I don’t know that any of these labels are helpful for anything other than permitting me to access mental health support.

The thing is, those labels are all over my medical notes. So now I have to practically be dying before I’ll se a GP for a physical ailment, lest they put it down to my mental health…

Hemispheric Synchronization via Active and Proactive Neuroplasticity

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Constructing Our Neural Information

October 31, 2023Anxiety, Behavior, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorderDepression, LGBTQ+, Positive Psychology, Self-ImprovementRobert F. Mullen, Ph.D.

Robert F Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

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The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided apply to most emotional malfunctions, including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and self-esteem and motivation issues. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.

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Constructing Our Neural Information

One of the primary objectives in recovery is to produce rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to overwhelm the negative polarity of our neural network. Neural stimuli are sensory – sights, sounds, tactile impressions; mental in the form of memory, intuition, and ideas; and emotional incited by images, words, and music.

Neural Information

Neural information is something conveyed or represented that produces a brain neuronal response. Proactive neuroplasticity aids in positively restructuring our neural network by inputting succinct, self-affirming, and self-motivating statements – affirmations of our character strengths, virtues, and attributes.

Goal and Objectives

The primary goal of recovery from social anxiety is the moderation of our fears and anxieties. We achieve this through a three-pronged approach.

Replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
Produce rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to overwhelm the negative abundance of our neural network.
Regenerate our self-esteem through mindfulness of our assets.

Replace, restructure, and regenerate.

The deliberate and repetitive input of positive information accelerates and consolidates neural restructuring. The intent and content of our information determine its positive or negative energy, i.e., the size, amount, or degree of that which passes from one neural atom to another.

Neuroplasticity

Plasticity is the quality of being shaped or molded. In physiology, plasticity is the adaptability of an organism to changes in its environment or differences between its various habitats. Neuroplasticity is the continual reorganization of our brain’s synaptic connections in response to learning or experience.

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Three Forms of Human Neuroplasticity

Human neuroplasticity happens in three forms. Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural response to things over which we have limited to no control – stimuli we absorb but do not initiate: a car alarm, lightning, or the smell of baked goods. Our neural network automatically restructures itself to what happens around us.

Active neuroplasticity happens through pursuits like creating, yoga, and journaling. We control active neuroplasticity because we choose the activity, whether intentional, unconscious, or impulsive. A significant component of active neuroplasticity is our altruistic and compassionate social behavior, e.g., teaching, compassion, and random acts of kindness.

Proactive neuroplasticity is our ability to govern our emotional well-being through DRNI – the deliberate, repetitive neural input of information. What is significant is how we dramatically accelerate and consolidate learning by consciously compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. Proactive neuroplasticity empowers us to transform our thoughts and behaviors, proactively creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities.

The hemispheric synchronization of proactive and active neuroplasticity are the two processes of what Jeffrey Schwartz coined self-directed neuroplasticity. Our brain’s right hemisphere manages our emotions, creativity, intuition, and imagination. That is the function of active neuroplasticity. Proactive neuroplasticity functions within our left hemisphere’s rational, analytical, and quantitative pursuits.

While the benefits of active neuroplasticity are apparent, the deliberate and repetitive neural input of proactive neuroplasticity is a controlled process that devises the positive statements we commit to memory and mentally or orally repeat to expedite learning and unlearning. This process requires the construction of information that is substantial and sound.

Our Neural Network

Neurons are the core components of our brain and central nervous system. They convey information through electrical activity. The stimulus sparks a receptor neuron that stimulates a presynaptic neuron that forwards that information to a postsynaptic neuron and then onto millions of participating neurons, causing a cellular chain reaction in multiple interconnected brain areas.

Hebbian Learning

Hebbian Learning states that the repeated and persistent stimulation of a presynaptic neural cell increases the efficiency of the postsynaptic cells that generate the neural chain reaction. It describes how neuroplasticity accelerates and consolidates learning.

Deliberate Neural Input

A deliberate act is a premeditated one. We initiate and control the process. To be proactive is to cause something to happen intentionally rather than respond to it after it has happened. Proactive neuroplasticity is the deliberate act of reconstructing our neural network through rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation. Its purpose is to overwhelm or replace harmful and toxic neural input with healthy, positive information.

Repetitive Neural Input

Repetition is the act or instance of repeating or being repeated – in this case, our neural information. Common synonyms of repetitive include monotonous, tedious, and mind-numbing. Consequently, the process can be off-putting unless we remain mindful of its purpose, which is the positive realignment of our neural network.

Neural Benefits of Proactive Neuroplasticity

The deliberate, repetitive neural input of information activates long-term potentiation, increasing the nerve impulses’ strength along the connecting pathways and generating more energy. Additionally, the process creates higher levels of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factors) – proteins associated with improved cognitive functioning, mental health, and memory.

The neural chain reaction generated by repetition reciprocates, in abundance, the energy of the information. Millions of neurons amplify the electrical activity on a massive scale. Positive information in, positive energy returned in abundance. Conversely, negative information in, negative energy reciprocated. Thus, the value of positive reinforcement.

When the activity of the axon pathways heightens, the neurotransmissions of roughly 50 chemical hormones accelerate, including GABA for relaxation, dopamine for pleasure and motivation, endorphins to boost our self-esteem, and serotonin for a sense of well-being. Acetylcholine supports neuroplasticity, glutamate enhances our memory, and noradrenalin improves concentration.

Neural input is the stimuli that impact our brain and compel its circuits to realign and create new neurons. However, the gateway to information – our receptor neurons – do not react to every stimulation. Our brain receives around two million bits of data per second but processes roughly 126 bits, so it is vital to provide substantial information.

Steps to Information Input

We begin by identifying the goal of our information. What is our intention and motivation? Are we focused on a specific challenge? Are we reinforcing a character strength? What is the personal milestone we want to achieve? Firm, specific goals enable the process.

We deliberately construct our information – the self-empowering statement(s) that supports our goal. We make it sound and viable to ensure its integrity and efficacy. The most productive information is guided by the following criteria.

Rational: Our objective is to subvert the irrationality of our negative self-beliefs. Rational is left-brain, analytical activity.

Reasonable: Right-brain activity supported by sound judgment; sensible. “I will publish my first novel” is an unreasonable expectation if we choose to remain illiterate.

Possible: If our goals are impossible, our efforts are futile. “I will win a Grammy” is not a viable option for the tone-deaf.

Positive: Anything else is counterproductive to our primary objective.

Unconditional: Placing limitations on our commitment by using words like maybe, might, and perhaps is our unconscious avoidance of accountability. Saying I might do something essentially means we may or may not do something depending upon our mood or disposition. How comfortable are we when someone says, I might consider paying you for your work?

Goal-Focused: If we do not know our destination, our path will be unfocused and meandering.

First-Person, Present or Future Time: The past is immutable, and the future is indeterminate. “I am confident.” “I will be supportive.”

Succinct: Brief, clearly expressed, and easily memorized.

The importance of productive neural input is indisputable. It expedites and integrates our three complementary goals. The deliberate replacement of our negative thoughts and beliefs with healthy, productive ones assists in changing the energy polarity of our neural network and simultaneously helps regenerate our self-esteem.

Hemispheric Synchronization via Active and Proactive Neuroplasticity

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Emotional Reasoning: A Feasible Oxymoron

October 17, 2023Anxiety, Behavior, Cognitive Distortions, Coping Mechanisms, Psychology, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorderAutomatic Negative Thoughts, Depression, LGBTQ+, Positive Psychology, Self-ImprovementRobert F. Mullen, Ph.D.

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided apply to most emotional malfunctions, including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and self-esteem and motivation issues. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.

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3Rs of Recovery and Self-Empowerment

Coping Strategies for Social Anxiety

Cognitive Distortion #1

EMOTIONAL REASONING

Defense mechanisms are temporary safeguards against situations challenging for our minds to manage. They are mostly unconscious and automatic psychological responses designed to protect us from our fears/anxieties. We deny, avoid, and compensate rather than confront our problems. Some individuals, however, are conscious of the power of defense mechanisms to misinform, distract, and deceive. They rationalize their behaviors or project them onto others.

Notwithstanding their designation, many defense mechanisms support recovery when utilized appropriately. Some, like avoidance, humor, and isolation, need no explanation. Others, such as compensation and dissociation, can have positive values in recovery.

Cognitive distortions, on the other hand, are generally unhealthy. They are exaggerated and irrational thought patterns that perpetuate our anxiety and depression. In recovery, we identify these self-destructive processes and, over time, eliminate them from our thoughts and behaviors.

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Cognitive Distortions

By cognitively distorting our reactions and responses to situations, we twist reality to reinforce or justify our toxic behaviors and validate our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions. Our attitudes refer to our emotions, convictions, and behaviors. Rules are the principles or regulations that influence our behaviors, and our assumptions are what we believe to be accurate or authentic. Social anxiety and other emotional dysfunctions compel us to create inaccurate self-perceptions.

Understanding how we use cognitive distortions as subconscious strategies to avoid facing certain truths is crucial to recovery. SAD drives our illogical thought patterns. Countering them requires mindfulness of our motives and rational responses. Our compulsion to twist the truth to validate our negative self-appraisal is powerful; it is vital to understand how these distortions sustain our social anxiety.

We are highly susceptible to cognitive distortions when under stress. They are emotional IEDs, capable of destroying our confidence and integrity. Cognitive distortions are rarely cut and dried but tend to overlap and share traits and characteristics. Because of their similarities, distinguishing one from the others is challenging, but as long as we remain mindful of their self-destructive nature, we can learn to recognize and even anticipate them to devise rational responses. After time and with practice, our reactions become automatic and spontaneous.

The number of cognitive distortions listed by experts ranges substantially. There are thirteen that are particularly germane to social anxiety They are always being right, blaming, catastrophizing, control fallacies, emotional reasoning, the fallacy of fairness, filtering, heaven’s reward fallacy, jumping to conclusions, labeling, overgeneralization, personalization, and polarized thinking. Emotional reasoning is the most prevalent and the ostensible progenitor of the others.

Emotional Reasoning

Emotional reasoning is making judgments and decisions based only on feelings – relying on our emotions over objective evidence. The colloquialism “my gut tells me” best defines this irrational thinking.

Emotional reasoning dictates how we comprehend reality and relate to the world. At the root of this cognitive distortion is the belief that what we feel must be true. If we feel like a loser, then we must be a loser. If we feel incompetent, then we must be incapable. If we make a mistake, we must be stupid. All the negative things we feel about ourselves, others, and the world must be valid because they feel genuine

Influence on Other Cognitive Distortions

The irrational thought patterns that underscore our cognitive distortions stem from the SAD-provoked convictions we are helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless. These emotional attributions project our response and reaction to life’s confrontations.

For example, when we engage in filtering, we selectively ignore the positive aspects of a situation because of our negativity bias and adverse self-appraisal. This unbalanced perspective leads to polarized thinking, where we perceive things only in black or white. Because of our negative self-beliefs and image, we assume everything that happens is our fault, and anything said derogatorily reflects on us.

Our friends and associates are busily engaged with other people at a social event. We assume we are tedious and undesirable. Our emotional reasoning then devolves into other cognitive distortions such as personalization, internal blaming and control fallacies.

Emotions

Emotions are the immediate feelings that we express in response to our situational fears/anxieties. By themselves, emotions can have limited relevance to the truth of an experience or situation. Emotions are products of what we think or assume is happening and our subsequent reaction. Evidence, observation, and facts are secondary considerations.

Emotionally Hard-Wired

We are hard-wired to be swayed by our emotions. They are our go-to reactions and responses because they are unconscious and automatic. If we have distorted thoughts and beliefs, our emotions reflect them. We likely misinterpret reality when we make judgments and decisions based on our feelings without supporting evidence.

Maintaining a Balanced Perspective

Most oxymorons are contradictory figures of speech that cancel each other out, e.g., the openly deceptive jumbo shrimp. However, the combined astuteness of emotion and reasoning projects a balanced perspective. Individuals who consider both in their reactions and responses are shrewd analysts who listen to their hearts while logically considering the evidence and alternatives.

Staying in touch with our feelings or trusting our instincts is healthy, provided they correspond with reality. Because SAD sustains itself on our irrational thoughts and feelings, however, we are prone to making poor decisions. A balanced perspective mitigates this propensity.

Resolving Emotional Reasoning

Recovery requires a rational response-based strategy for psychological balance that considers the simultaneous mutual interaction of mind, body, spirit, and emotions. We identify our fears/anxieties and corresponding automatic negative thoughts, devising rational responses. We learn to rechannel our emotional angst into intellectual self-awareness. We reframe our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions by considering facts, evidence, and multiple perspectives.

Hemispheric Synchronization via Active and Proactive Neuroplasticity

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Dual Perspectives on Shame in Recovery

October 11, 2023Anxiety, Behavior, Mental Health, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorderCoping Skills, Depression, LGBTQ+, Recovery, Self-esteemRobert F. Mullen, Ph.D.

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided apply to most emotional malfunctions, including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and self-esteem and motivation issues. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.

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Coping Strategies for Social Anxiety

Dual Perspectives on Shame in Recovery

One of the more identifiable characteristics of social anxiety is our overriding sense of shame. Externally, we are subject to prejudice and misinformation. Public opinion, the media, and mental health stigma contribute significantly to our negative self-evaluation. Internally, we feel shame for the defects and behaviors that support our emotional malfunction.

Defining Shame

Psychology defines shame as the unpleasant, self-conscious feeling from being or participating in a dishonorable, ridiculous, or immodest act. Although correlating and coexisting, shame is not the same as guilt. We feel guilt for doing something wrong, whereas shame is the perception of being wrong.

Shame and Social Anxiety

Shame can be painful and incapacitating. It can make us feel powerless and acutely diminished. When we feel shame, we want to hide and become invisible. We withdraw from the world and avoid human connectedness. We feel powerless, acutely diminished, and incompetent. These are also the prevailing symptoms of our social anxiety, so shame aggravates our condition, causing us to readily concede defeat and abandon hope. Until we rationally respond to these self-defeatisms, we remain caught in an endless cycle of desperation that alienates us from our true nature.

However, treating shame as an unhealthy emotion without considering the positive aspects of the experience is a missed opportunity for emotional well-being. Shame can be revealing, cathartic, and motivational, promoting growth and self-awareness. One of the positive attributions of shame is our moral recognition and analysis of right or wrong.

Therefore, we must consider a balanced perspective and determine whether our shame is irrational or justifiable. We can subsequently evaluate and respond appropriately.

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Is Our Shame Irrational or Justifiable?

Shame is irrational if it is in response to experiencing social anxiety. We are not accountable for its onset. We did not make it happen. It happened to us. There is no legitimacy for feeling shame for adolescent-onset due to childhood disturbance. SAD is common, universal, and indiscriminate, impacting roughly one in four adolescents and adults. There is no shame in experiencing the symptoms of social anxiety.

Shame is, however, justifiable in our unwillingness to remedy our social anxiety. While we are not accountable for the hand we have been dealt, we are responsible for how we play those cards. We have the means to moderate our symptoms dramatically, and not taking advantage of recovery is irrational. While there is no sensible reason to feel shame for having social anxiety, it is a legitimate emotional response to our unwillingness to do something about it.

The Long-Term Inefficacy of Defense Mechanisms

It is common for individuals experiencing social anxiety to go to enormous lengths to remain ignorant of SAD’s destructive capabilities as if, by ignoring them, they do not exist or will somehow go away. We hide behind defense mechanisms or cognitively distort reality. We deny, compensate, project, and dissociate to avoid confronting our symptoms.

Notwithstanding, none of these psychological responses, designed to protect us from our fears/anxieties, are effective in the long term. Irrational thought patterns perpetuate our anxiety and depression. Rather than justifying our toxic thoughts and behaviors, they reinforce them. They do not subvert our awareness of our condition; they merely conceal it from our consciousness. Nonetheless, the symptoms persist.

The guilt of knowing, even subconsciously, that we can moderate that which has made our lives unbearable. Refusing to acknowledge or take advantage of recovery is untenable. Resistance, subconscious or otherwise, propagates our shame and other negatively valenced emotions. Rather than protecting our consciousness, it exposes it to negative neural feedback.

Negatively Valenced Emotions

Valanced is a psychological term to characterize specific emotions that negatively affect our daily lives. When left unresolved, these adverse emotions, including shame, guilt, and resentment, impact our psychological and physiological health, aggravating our negative self-appraisal and low self-esteem. They adversely affect our thoughts, behaviors, and relationships, permeate our neural network with negative energy, and obstruct the process of recovery.

Self-Disappointment

Self-recrimination for not managing our emotional well-being life is far more destructive than the symptoms of our condition. The shame of self-disappointment – the moral emptiness that pervades when we abandon our inherent ability and potential – is soul-crushing. And unnecessary.

Unresolved Shame is Reckless

Holding onto shame is reckless because it suggests we do not care about the consequences. Simply put, we are reckless if we have the wherewithal to enable our emotional well-being and quality of life and choose not to do so. The dichotomy we find ourselves in is that social anxiety compels us to view ourselves as helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless. That is its function, and that is how it sustains itself. If we do nothing to alleviate these attributions, when recovery is accessible, we allow SAD to control us rather than the alternative. We continue to feel helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless.

Recovery Goal and Objectives

Committing to recovery is one of the hardest things we will ever do. It takes enormous courage and the realization that we are of value, consequential, and deserving of happiness. Social anxiety is relentless and manipulative in its efforts to prevent that commitment. SAD thrives in our unhappiness.

The primary goal of recovery from social anxiety is the moderation of our irrational fears and anxieties. In self-empowerment, it is the rebuilding of our self-esteem and motivation. We achieve this through a three-pronged approach.

Replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
Produce rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to overwhelm the negative abundance of our neural network.
Regenerate our self-esteem through mindfulness of our assets.

Unresolved shame impedes these goals. Rather than moderating our fears and anxieties, it exacerbates them. Instead of regenerating our self-esteem, it weakens it.

Blaming

Another product of our negatively valanced emotions is our compulsion to blame others when the self-destructive nature of our shame, guilt, and resentment becomes unmanageable to our consciousness. Years of self-reproach for our negative thoughts and behaviors can be overwhelming. Our defense mechanisms impel us to hold others responsible for things we are unable or unwilling to manage emotionally. We convince ourselves that others are responsible for the hopelessness and unworthiness caused by our anxiety. Someone must be held accountable for our perceived incompetence and inadequacies.

Self-Blaming

Or we resort to self-blame. Especially pervasive in social anxiety disorder, self-blaming is a highly toxic form of emotional self-abuse. We blame ourselves for our shortcomings. We blame ourselves for our lack of commitment or our failure to follow through. We blame ourselves for our inability to achieve our goals and objectives. Consequently, we blame ourselves for both irrational and justifiable shame.

Committing to Recovery

Recovery and self-empowerment require letting go of our negative self-perspectives, expectations, and beliefs and opening our minds to new ideas and concepts. When we hold onto shame, we remain imprisoned in the past and our negative self-beliefs.

Pre-recovery, our symptomatic emotional status is an entanglement of weeds in a garden of potential flourishing. The tools and techniques are there, but we must bring them out of the shed and put them to work. Shame not only obstructs the door but represses the incentive.

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GROUPS – WORKSHOPS – SESSIONS

October 5, 2023Anxiety, LGBTQ, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorderDepression, Positive Psychology, Recovery, Self-esteemRobert F. Mullen, Ph.D.

The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided apply to most emotional malfunctions, including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and self-esteem and motivation issues. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.

ReChanneling’s Groups – Workshops – Sessions

Recovery is regaining possession of something stolen or lost. Self-empowerment is making a conscious decision to become stronger and more confident in controlling our lives. In neuroses such as anxiety, depression, and comorbidities, what has been stolen is our emotional well-being and quality of life. In self-empowerment, it is the loss of self-esteem and motivation. Accordingly, both recovery and self-empowerment deal with regaining what has been lost.

Plasticity: capable of being altered or molded or
Neuroplasticity: the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections in response to learning or experience.
Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural response to things over which we have limited to no control – stimuli we absorb but do not initiate or focus on. A car alarm, lightning, the smell of baked goods. Our neural network automatically restructures itself to what happens around us.
Active neuroplasticity happens through intentional pursuits like creating, yoga, and journaling. We control active neuroplasticity because we consciously choose the activity. A significant component of active neuroplasticity is our altruistic and compassionate social behavior, e.g., teaching, compassion, and random acts of kindness.
Proactive neuroplasticity is rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network from toxic to positive. This is best consummated by DRNI – the deliberate, repetitive neural input of information.

Recovery and self-empowerment workshops have three objectives: to (1) replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones, (2) produce rapid, neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network, and (3) regenerate our self-esteem. The successful realization of these objectives compels us to recognize and celebrate the extraordinariness of our lives, confirming we are desirable and consequential.

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SUPPORT GROUPS
Support Groups and Group Sessions provided pro bono.

Social Anxiety and Proactive Neuroplasticity

Since 2021; 385+ members. All day, every day, we experience fear, anxiety, and loneliness. SAD makes us feel helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless. We worry about criticism, disapproval, and rejection, never quite ‘fitting in.’ We feel socially inferior and incompetent. Utilizing an integration of neuroscience and psychology, we develop individually targeted tools and techniques that accelerate and consolidate our recovery from social anxiety.

Our paradigmatic approach to recovery targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration, utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods. We provide (1) a welcoming and confidential space for members to share their experiences and meet people with similar concerns and (2) the tools and techniques for recovery from social anxiety.

The Social Anxiety and Proactive Neuroplasticity group conducts online group sessions focusing on issues impacting our daily lives.

LBGTQ+ Social Anxiety Group

Since 2997, 750+ members. The LGBTQ+ community is almost twice as susceptible to social anxiety as our heterosexual and cisgender counterparts. Social anxiety disorder makes us feel helpless and hopeless. We isolate ourselves due to our fears of criticism and rejection. Our group’s paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods, including active and proactive neuroplasticity and cognitive-behavioral self-modification.

The LGBTQ+ Social Anxiety Group conducts online group sessions focusing on issues that impact our daily lives. Our primary objective is to provide a secure and confidential environment where individuals can share their stories and issues and get answers from persons who understand and care.

ReChanneling: Recovery and Self-Empowerment

Since 2020; 120+ members. Proactive neuroplasticity fundamentally applies to pursuing personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living.

It accelerates learning by deliberately compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. It is what makes learning and registering new experiences possible. All information notifies our brain to restructure, producing a correlated change in behavior and perspective.

The deliberate, repetitive neural input of information (DRNI) accelerates and consolidates learning, empowering us to transform our thoughts, behaviors, and perspectives, creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities.

We hold monthly online group sessions on the science and implementation of proactive and active neuroplasticity, learning how to successfully devise a structured plan to pursue our goals and objectives.

WORKSHOPS

Online Social Anxiety Recovery Workshop

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The ultimate objectives of our Social Anxiety Recovery Workshop are to:

Provide the tools and techniques to replace years of toxic thoughts and behaviors with rational, healthy ones, dramatically alleviating the self-destructive symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other emotional malfunctions.
Compel the rediscovery and reinvigoration of the individual’s character strengths, virtues, and attributes.
Design a targeted behavioral self-modification process to help the individual re-engage their social comfort and status.
Provide the means to control our symptoms rather than allowing them to control us.

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Online Self-Empowerment Workshop

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The ultimate objectives of our Self-Empowerment Workshop are to:

Provide the tools and techniques of proactive neuroplasticity to accelerate and consolidate goals and objectives.
Recognize and utilize our character strengths, virtues, and achievements.
Design a targeted process to regenerate our self-esteem and motivation.
Replace adverse habits with healthy new ones that underscore our potential.

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Online Lecture and Discussion
What is Proactive Neuroplasticity?

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What are active and proactive neuroplasticity, and why is their collaboration the most efficient means of learning and unlearning? What are the scientific and psychological validations?

Neuroplasticity is our brain’s continuous adaptation and restructuring to information. Science recognizes that our neural network is dynamic and malleable – realigning its pathways and rebuilding its circuits in response to all stimuli.

Hemispheric synchronization is the collaboration of our left and right brain hemispheres to achieve optimal coherence.

Both proactive and active neuroplasticity are necessary for recovery-remission from emotional malfunction. They are the two processes of what Jeffrey Schwartz coined self-directed neuroplasticity. Our brain’s right hemisphere manages our emotions, creativity, intuition, and imagination. That is the function of active neuroplasticity. Proactive neuroplasticity attends to our left hemisphere’s rational, analytical, and quantitative pursuits.

Neuroplasticity is the most efficient means of self-empowerment or recovery from emotional dysfunction. We dramatically accelerate and consolidate learning by deliberately compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. Proactive and active neuroplasticity empowers us to consciously transform our thoughts and behaviors, creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities. It gives us the power to take control of our emotional well-being and quality of life.

Hemispheric Synchronization via Active and Proactive Neuroplasticity

October 3, 2023Anxiety, Behavior, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, Self-Empowerment, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorderDepression, LGBTQ+, Positive Psychology, Recovery, Self-esteem, Self-ImprovementRobert F. Mullen, Ph.D.

Robert F Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided apply to most emotional malfunctions, including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and self-esteem and motivation issues. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.

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Recent Posts

Dual Perspectives on Shame in Recovery

Hemispheric Synchronization via Active and Proactive Neuroplasticity

We learn through hemispheric synchronization, which is the collaboration of the left and right hemispheres of our brain to achieve optimal coherence. We aggressively and consciously utilize both hemispheres of our brain through active and proactive neuroplasticity.

Hemispheric Synchronization via Active and Proactive Neuroplasticity

Execution accelerates and consolidates our three recovery objectives: to

Replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
Produce rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to overwhelm the negative abundance of our neural network.
Regenerate our self-esteem through mindfulness of our assets.

Both proactive and active neuroplasticity are necessary for recovery-remission from emotional malfunction. They are the two processes of what Jeffrey Schwartz coined self-directed neuroplasticity. Our brain’s right hemisphere manages our emotions, creativity, intuition, and imagination. That is the function of active neuroplasticity. Proactive neuroplasticity attends to our left hemisphere’s rational, analytical, and quantitative pursuits.

Neuroplasticity

Plasticity is the quality of being easily shaped or molded. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s continuous adaptation and restructuring to sensation, experience, and information. Neuroscience recognizes that our neural network is dynamic and malleable – realigning its pathways and rebuilding its circuits in response to all recognized stimuli.

Recovery and Self-Empowerment

Recovery is regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost. Self-empowerment is making a conscious decision to become stronger and more confident in controlling our lives. In neuroses such as anxiety, depression, and comorbidities, what has been stolen or lost is our emotional well-being and quality of life. In self-empowerment, it is the loss of self-esteem and motivation. So, both recovery and self-empowerment focus on regaining what has been lost.

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Accelerated Learning

We accelerate and consolidate learning and unlearning by compelling our brain to restructure its neural circuitry. This deliberate realignment confirms that our emotional well-being is self-determined. We are impacted by outside forces over which we have limited to no control, including life’s vicissitudes, physical deterioration, and hostilities. Notwithstanding, our psychological health is determined by how we react to things – how we respond to adversity as well as fortune and opportunity. The onus of recovery and self-empowerment rests with us. We control our emotional well-being.

There is an underlying theme we adhere to in recovery and self-empowerment. We cease to define ourselves by the negative aspects of our being, i.e., our faults and deficiencies, and redefine ourselves by our character strengths, virtues, and attributes. We do not win our battles with defective weapons but with tools of optimal efficiency. Mindfulness (recognition, comprehension, and acceptance) of this pragmatism promotes our transformation.

Human Brain Neuroplasticity

We consciously and deliberately transform our thoughts and behaviors through neuroplasticity, creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities. Our informed and deliberate engagement provokes change rather than reacting and responding to it. Both proactive and active neuroplasticity compel this change.

Information alerts a receptor neuron that sends electrical data to a sensory neuron, stimulating presynaptic neurons that forward it to millions of participating neurons, causing a cellular chain reaction in multiple interconnected areas of our brain.

Long-Term Potentiation

In addition, deliberate neuroplasticity activates long-term potentiation, increasing the nerve impulses’ strength and generating more energy. Additionally, the process creates higher levels of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factors) – proteins associated with improved cognitive functioning, mental health, and memory.

Neural Reciprocation

Hormonal Neurotransmissions

The heightened activity of our axon pathways boosts the neurotransmissions of chemical hormones, feeding us GABA for relaxation, dopamine for pleasure and motivation, endorphins to boost our self-esteem, and serotonin for a sense of well-being. Acetylcholine supports neuroplasticity, glutamate enhances our memory, and noradrenalin improves concentration. To date, neuroscientists have discovered over fifty chemical hormones.

Three Forms

Human neuroplasticity happens in three forms.

Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural response to things over which we have limited to no control – stimuli we absorb but do not initiate: a car alarm, lightning, or the smell of baked pastries. Our neural network automatically restructures itself to what happens around us.

Active neuroplasticity happens through intentional pursuits like creating, yoga, and journaling. We control active neuroplasticity because we consciously choose the activity. A significant component of active neuroplasticity is our altruistic and compassionate social behavior, e.g., teaching, compassion, and random acts of kindness.

Proactive neuroplasticity is rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network from toxic to positive. We execute this by our deliberate, repetitive neural input of information.

Our ability to deliberately accelerate and consolidate learning and unlearning is significant. Over the years, our brain structures itself around negative neural input, forming in childhood and increasing exponentially due to our inherent negative bias and the vicissitudes of life. The primary objective in recovery and self-empowerment is replacing or overwhelming negative information with positive neural input.

Proactive Neuroplasticity

Proactive neuroplasticity is the most effective method of positive neural restructuring. Through the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information (DRNI), we compel our brains to change their negative polarity to positive. This activity is supported by our brain’s left hemisphere – the analytical part responsible for rational thinking.

While proactive neuroplasticity attends to the analytical, active neuroplasticity addresses the emotional, social, and spiritual. What one lacks in neural productivity is fulfilled by the other.

Active Neuroplasticity

Active neuroplasticity replaces our self-destructive thoughts and behaviors while regenerating our self-esteem. Creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities requires positive and repetitive neural input.

Active neuroplasticity happens through intentional pursuits that counteract the years of adverse neural information. We replace or overwhelm our negative tendencies and negotiate a more balanced perspective by rediscovering and utilizing our inherent and acquired character strengths, virtues, and attributes disrupted by our emotional malfunction.

We pay attention to our bodies through exercise, dancing, and yoga. We improve our cognitive functions through culture, creativity, and other mental pursuits. Introspection, meditation, and self-compassion enhance our spirit. Our emotional well-being is addressed through CBT, positive psychologies, and other individually targeted approaches.

Beyond the synthetic and creative products of active neuroplasticity is our ethical and compassionate social behavior. Contributions to others and society are extraordinary assets to our recovery objectives. The value of volunteering – providing support, empathy, and concern for those in need not only promotes positive behavioral change but also accelerates and consolidates neural restructuring. Likewise, the social interconnectedness established by caring interconnectivity augments the regeneration of our self-esteem and self-appreciation.

Inherent Collaboration

Both proactive and active neuroplasticity assist in the positive transformation of our thoughts and behaviors. Their collaboration reinforces and strengthens neural restructuring. Proactive neuroplasticity (rational, analytical, quantitative, DRNI) is self-oriented; active neuroplasticity (emotional, creative, intuitive, qualitative) is self- and other-oriented. Their activities collaborate, as do our two neural hemispheres.

Gestalt psychology considers the human mind and behavior as a whole. Radical behaviorism considers observable behaviors and the diversity of human thought and experience. That calls for a collaboration of science, philosophy, and psychology. Philosophy, existentially defined, welcomes religious and spiritual insight. Neuroscience and psychology collaborate in recovery from emotional malfunction and the pursuit of our goals and objectives. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Self-Esteem/Self-Appreciation

Self-esteem is mindfulness of our qualities and character as well as our defects. It is how we think about ourselves, how we think others think about us, and how we process that information. Healthy self-esteem tells us we are of value, consequential, and desirable. The inherent byproduct of that realization is self-appreciation. It is self-esteem paid forward. Consolidating our self-regard and recognizing what we have to offer drives us to share it with others. Self-appreciation is the natural evolution of self-esteem.

Proactive and active neuroplasticity are necessary collaborative mechanisms for neural restructuring, reframing our thoughts and behaviors, and regenerating our self-esteem and self-appreciation.

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Perfectionism and Unreasonable Expectations

September 19, 2023Anxiety, Cognitive Distortions, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorderAutomatic Negative Thoughts, Coping Skills, Depression, Positive Psychology, Self-esteemRobert F. Mullen, Ph.D.

Managing our social anxiety and depression.

Robert F Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChaneling

The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided apply to most emotional malfunctions, including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and self-esteem and motivation issues. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.

Perfectionism and Unreasonable Expectations

Negative self-analysis compels us to overcompensate. A byproduct of overcompensation is perfectionism. Perfectionism causes us to set unreasonable expectations.

None of us is perfect. We all conceal things about ourselves that make us appear defective or inadequate. Often, we hide these indiscretions from ourselves by engaging in defense mechanisms such as denial and projection. Or we cognitively distort our toxic behaviors to justify or validate them. We distract, project, and rationalize.

Living with persistent negative self-beliefs for years on end is emotionally destabilizing. Persons experiencing social anxiety crave interconnectedness, but fears of intimacy and rejection challenge the wherewithal to establish and maintain healthy relationships. Our fears of negative judgment and criticism limit creativity and interactivity. These difficulties challenge our psychological health, compelling us to use defense mechanisms. Any mental process that protects us from our fears, anxieties, and threats to our emotional well-being can be considered a defense mechanism.

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Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms are psychological responses that protect us from our unrelenting anxieties. They temporarily appease our sense of helplessness, hopelessness, undesirability, and worthlessness. They allow us to twist reality to conform to our irrational and unhealthy conduct.

Defense mechanisms are short-term safeguards against the thoughts and emotions that are difficult for our conscious minds to manage. Most, like compensation, substance abuse, and projection are methods of avoidance – unhealthy resolutions to our fears and anxieties that offer temporary respite but do little to moderate them in the long term.

Some defense mechanisms, when used appropriately, can be beneficial. Without coping mechanisms, healthy or otherwise, we can experience decompensation – the inability or unwillingness to generate effective psychological alternatives to stress – resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration.

Compensation

Compensation is when we excel in one area of our lives to counteract real or perceived deficits in another. The socially inadequate becomes an actor or musician. A teenager compensates for learning difficulties by excelling in sports.

Compensation has healthy applications. We compensate for our adverse thoughts and behaviors by replacing them with positive, productive ones. We compensate for our low self-esteem by becoming mindful of our character strengths, virtues, and achievements.

Our social anxiety has negatively impacted our emotional well-being and quality of life since childhood. Our obsession with our performance and shortcomings is a constant self-reminder of our imperfections. Our symptomatic negative self-analysis provides feelings of incompetence and undesirability. These self-attributions compel us to overcompensate, which drives us to create unreasonable expectations.

An expectation, by definition, is a fervid emotional belief that something will take place in the future. When we set expectations, we invest an interest in their outcome. An unreasonable expectation is unsound and will likely be unmet.

The Problem of Perfectionism

An unhealthy byproduct of overcompensation is falling into the trap of perfectionism. This is especially prevalent in persons experiencing anxiety and depression. Perfectionism causes us to set unreasonable expectations to compensate for our perceived deficiencies. Let’s discuss some glaring similarities between social anxiety disorder and perfectionism.

Seek Progress, Not Perfection

SAD persons worry about their performance before and during a situation and obsess about the outcome long after. We fear negative appraisal and rejection. We beat ourselves up when our unreasonable expectations are unmet. Perfectionism is not the desire to do well but the need to be faultless. Anything less is unsatisfactory. Perfectionism and social anxiety have a parallel relationship.

Perfectionists and SAD persons have lower implicit and explicit self-esteem relative to healthy controls.

A perfectionist perceives anything less than perfection as failure. It’s the all-or-nothing distortion of polarized thinking common among SAD persons. We see things as absolute – black or white. There is no middle ground, no compromise. We are either brilliant or abject failures. Our friends are for us or against us. If we are not faultless, we must be broken and inept.

Perfectionists and SAD persons avoid situations that project potential failure. We worry so much about doing or saying something inappropriate that we procrastinate or avoid the situation entirely. This avoidance exacerbates our isolation and loneliness.

Perfectionists do not take criticism well. A prevailing symptom of social anxiety disorder is the fear of situations in which we may be negatively judged, criticized, or ridiculed. Because of our critical nature and tendency to reject out of fear of rejection, perfectionists and SAD persons are, ostensibly, lonely or isolated, which seriously impacts our ability to initiate, develop, and sustain satisfying relationships.

Perfectionists obsess over their perceived imperfections. Rather than taking pride in their abilities, they prioritize their faults. Filtering is a cognitive distortion common to SAD persons. We selectively choose our perspective. We focus on the negative aspects of a situation and exclude the positive. Negative filtering sustains our toxic core and intermediate beliefs. Example: A dozen colleagues celebrate our promotion; one ignores us. We obsess over the lone individual over the goodwill of the others.

Unmet Expectations

What happens in the likelihood our unreasonable expectations are unmet? Because we have a vested interest, we are psychologically attached to the outcome. Fixed In our minds, we see it as a reality. When it does not go our way, we experience distress and disappointment.

Experts describe the reaction to disappointment as a form of sadness – an expression of desperation or grief due to loss. While it is true that we cannot lose what we have not acquired, fixing the expectation in our mind makes it real and visceral. Unmet expectations can lead to depression, self-loathing, and other traits associated with perfectionism and social anxiety.

Setting Reasonable Expectations

It is human nature to want to aspire to excellence. How do we set reasonable expectations when our perfectionism demands the brass ring? Reasonable expectations that are rational, possible, positive, unconditional, and goal-focused are more likely to be met.

Rational: Of sound judgment; sensible. I will publish my first novel is an unreasonable expectation if we choose to remain illiterate.

Possible: If our expectations are unachievable, our efforts are futile.

Positive: Supporting negative behavior is detrimental to our emotional well-being. It is, likewise, irrational and, therefore, unreasonable to self-harm. Avoid pressure, negative absolute, and conditional words.

Unconditional: Imposing conditions on our expectations decreases the probability of success. Our goal is clear and concise, unimpeded by caveats.

Goal-Focused: If we know our destination, our path will be focused and coherent. The most effective expectations are calculated and specific to our intention. What is our end goal – the personal milestone we want to achieve?

Set Expectations Early On

Setting expectations carefully in advance allows us to preplan strategies and coping mechanisms to help meet them.

Self-Esteem and Other-Esteem

Perfectionists and persons experiencing SAD are subject to significantly lower implicit and explicit self-esteem relative to healthy controls. Latent self-qualities, however, can be regenerated through specific tools and techniques. Healthy self-esteem accelerates and consolidates the structure and effectiveness of reasonable expectations. Rebuilding our self-esteem is a primary objective in recovery and self-empowerment.

Notwithstanding, we can only reasonably set expectations of ourselves. Setting expectations of others will result in frustration and disappointment because we have no control over their outcome. It is called self-esteem, not other-esteem. We only have jurisdiction over internal expectations.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

No matter how reasonably we set them, occasionally, our expectations will be partially or wholly unmet. We may need to modify them to accommodate the situation. We may need more practice or to extend our planned timeframe. Reasonable expectations require flexibility. While we control our reactions and responses to situations, we are subject to external factors over which we have no control. It is part of the learning process. By reframing our perspective, we learn to recognize the positive aspects of experience.

Be Mindful of Distorted Thinking

Persons experiencing social anxiety are highly susceptible to cognitive distortions. Recognizing, comprehending, and accepting the self-destructive nature of these and other defense mechanisms is essential to recovery.

Self-Appreciation

Self-appreciation is recognizing and enjoying our good qualities, efforts, and achievements. For every positive attempt or interaction, congratulate yourself. You deserve to experience the pride and satisfaction that complements such efforts fully. Always be kind to yourself.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. If we are foolishly determined to fly, our wings will melt and hurdle us to the ground. Recovery, however, is a life’s work in progress. There is no absolute cure for social anxiety, but by practicing the recovery tools and tools over time, we experience an exponential and dramatic moderation of our symptoms.

The key is always progress over perfection.

Constructing Our Neural Information

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Coping Mechanisms for Social Anxiety

September 12, 2023Anxiety, Automatic Negative Thoughts, Behavior, Cognitive Distortions, Coping Mechanisms, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, PsychologyDepression, LGBTQ+, Positive Psychology, Recovery, Self-esteem, Self-ImprovementRobert F. Mullen, Ph.D.

Robert F Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided apply to most emotional malfunctions, including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and self-esteem and motivation issues. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.

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Coping Strategies

Coping Mechanisms for Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is culturally identifiable by the persistent fear and avoidance of social interaction and performance situations, which causes us to miss the life experiences that connect us with the world.

Replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
Produce rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to overwhelm the negative abundance of our neural network.
Regenerate our self-esteem through mindfulness of our assets.

To achieve this, we identify three objectives: To (1) replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones, (2) produce rapid neurological stimulation to restructure our neural network, and (3) regenerate our self-esteem.

Coping Strategies versus Coping Mechanisms

Coping strategies are the methods or approaches that best execute our three objectives. In recovery workshops, we emphasize response-focused and solution-focused strategies, but multiple complementary strategies are utilized, including problem and emotion-focused coping strategies that help us manage our response to feared situations.

Coping mechanisms are tools and techniques that implement our strategies. They allow us to temporarily step outside the bullseye to objectively analyze our automatic negative thoughts and reactions to respond rationally and productively.

In general terms, coping mechanisms help us cope with everyday stress, anxiety, and other negative emotions. They range from practiced skills in recovery (e.g., slow talk, persona, and character focus) to everyday stress reduction like gardening, journaling, and listening to music. Healthy coping mechanisms are adaptive – positive contributions to our emotional well-being.

Decompensation

Without coping mechanisms, healthy or otherwise, we can experience decompensation – the inability to generate effective psychological stress response, resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration.

Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms are temporary safeguards against situations that challenge our conscious minds. They are automatic psychological responses designed to protect us from our fears/anxieties. Notwithstanding their label, many defense mechanisms support recovery when utilized appropriately.

Cognitive distortions are common defense mechanisms. CDs are exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that perpetuate our anxiety and depression. They interpret experiences in ways that don’t represent reality. We twist it to reinforce or justify our toxic behaviors and validate our destructive thoughts and conduct.

Any process that protects us from our fears, anxieties, and threats to our emotional well-being is a defense mechanism. Some, like avoidance, humor, and isolation, require no explanation. Others, such as compensation and dissociation, have positive and negative values.

Situations

A situation is a set of circumstances – the facts, conditions, and incidents affecting us at a particular time in a particular place. A feared situation provokes fears/anxieties that negatively impact our activities and associations.

Two Types of Situations

Two types of situations concern us. Anticipated situations are those that we know, in advance, will provoke our fears/anxieties. They can be one-off situations like a job interview or social event. They can be recurring situations like the classroom or our daily work environment.

Unexpected situations catch us by surprise—stress-provoking incidents impacting our daily lives such as faulty plumbing, an unexpected guest, or losing a wallet.

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Associated Fears and Corresponding ANTs

Automatic Negative Thoughts are immediate, involuntary expressions of our fears/anxieties. They can occur prior to, during, or after a feared situation. ANTs are terse emotional responses, unbased upon reason and deliberation. They are the unpleasant expressions of our negative self-beliefs that define who we are, who we think we are, and who we think others think we are.

We first determine the fear-provoking situation to Identify our fears/anxieties and corresponding ANTs. Where are we when we feel anxious or apprehensive, and what activities are involved? What are we thinking? What might we be doing? Who and what do we avoid because of these insecure feelings?

We then unpack our associated fears/anxieties. We ask ourselves the following: What is problematic in the situation? How do I feel (physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually)? What is my specific concern or worry? What is the worst thing that could happen to me? What might happen to me?

The next step is unmasking our corresponding automatic negative thoughts, e.g., “I am incompetent.” “No one will talk to me.” “I will do something stupid.” “I am a loser.”

Examining and analyzing this information allows us to generate rational responses to our fears/anxieties and corresponding ANTs, which are not factual but subjective abstractions.

Moderating Our Fears/Anxieties and ANTs

In anticipated situations, we have the luxury of preplanning strategies to address our fears/anxieties and ANTs. For unexpected situations, assembling an emergency preparedness kit of practiced coping mechanisms is prudent and helpful.

Coping mechanisms are valuable tools in the recovery process. Their role is to moderate the negative stimuli within the situation, allowing us to de-stress and reframe our responses. Our apprehensions adversely impact our ability to concentrate. Additionally, we are hampered by our negative self-appraisal and the influx of stress-provoking hormones.

We develop and practice more detailed coping mechanisms in a workshop environment. Introspection, collective activities, and graded exposure are helpful to the client in determining the mechanisms that are most individually effective and adaptable.

There are forms of coping mechanisms designed to moderate our fears and anxieties.

Grounding

We are comprised of mind, body, spirit, and emotions. Grounding is rechanneling our emotional angst by connecting with our physical presence. We create sense distractions that decrease the flow of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones. The 5-4-3-2-1 technique is the standard. We focus on objects, sounds, smells, tastes, and our bodies. Doing so moderates the emotional distress.

Rational Response

Rational Response is a logical reaction or response to situations. Life is not fair. There are things we cannot control. There are things we can do to alleviate suffering. We accept the things we cannot change and find the courage and incentive to change the things we can.

We devise rational responses to rebut the automatic negative thoughts that correspond to our situational fears/anxieties. They challenge stressful incidents that impact us at a particular time in a particular place. Essentially, rational responses are intellectual evaluations of our emotional angst.

Reframing

Reframing is identifying negative emotions and situations by changing our perspective on how we experience and respond to them. Positive reframing is turning a negative perspective into a positive one. Experts agree that positive reframing is critical for emotional well-being.

Reframing addresses our negativity in general, while rational response focuses on our feared situation.

As we progress in recovery, grounding, rational response, and reframing become habitual and automatic.

Seek Progress, Not Perfection

SAD persons worry about their performance before and during a situation and obsess about the outcome long after. We fear criticism and negative appraisal. We set unreasonable expectations to compensate for our perceptions of incompetence and inadequacy, and then we beat ourselves up when our expectations are unmet. Perfectionism is not the desire to do well but the need to be faultless. Anything less is unsatisfactory. Perfectionism and social anxiety have a parallel relationship.

Recovery, however, is a life’s work in progress. There is no absolute cure for social anxiety, but with work and over time, we experience a dramatic and exponential moderation of our symptoms. The key is progress over perfection.

Set Reasonable Expectations

An expectation, by definition, is a fervid belief that something will take place in the future. When we set expectations, we invest a strong interest in their outcome. What happens in the likelihood that our expectations are unmet? Because we have a vested interest, we are psychologically attached to the outcome. Fixed In our minds, we set it as a reality. When it does not go our way, the general response is one of disappointment.

Experts describe the reaction to disappointment as a form of sadness – an expression of desperation or grief due to loss. While it is true that we cannot lose what we have not acquired, fixing the expectation in our mind makes it real and visceral. Loss leads to depression, self-loathing, and other traits associated with perfectionism and social anxiety.

Engender Joy and Laughter

The endorphins and chemical hormones transmitted with positive emotions dramatically enhance our psychological well-being. Joy and laughter counteract stress and defuse anger, resentment, and shame. They strengthen our immune system, boost energy levels, and enhance memory and concentration. When we smile and laugh, the influx of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones decreases. Finding humor in stressful situations reframes our perspective, takes the edge off our anxiety, and helps us take things less seriously. It provides a sense of shared community, which helps counter our fear and avoidance of intimacy and social events, improving our psychological health.

Avoid Non-Productive Situations

A primary SAD symptom is our intense fear or anxiety during social situations, causing us to avoid interacting with others. Human interconnectivity, however, is essential for emotional health. Turning down opportunities to socialize exacerbates our isolation, and we continue to miss possibilities for intimacy and friendship. In recovery, we gradually expose ourselves to situations that can engender positive social interaction.

This, however, does not mean that we need to challenge every situation. There is a distinction between avoiding out of fear and avoiding out of reason. One workshop exercise is to initiate a salutation or small talk with a stranger. Discretion about who and where we engage is important. Another example is the socially anxious individual with an arts degree attending a conference for chemical engineers. Avoidance is not only reasonable but also evident.

Remember, You Are Not Alone

Roughly, 124 million U.S. adults and adolescents experience anxiety disorders. 60% of those have depression, and many resort to substance abuse. Persons experiencing SAD are too preoccupied with their own center of attention to seek us out for judgment or criticism. At least two of five people in any situation are just as apprehensive as we are, if not more so. So, when we worry and start to hyperventilate at a social event, we are in good company. Social anxiety is common, universal, and indiscriminate. We are never alone.

Emergency Preparedness Kit

Knowing how to respond effectively to unexpected situations is challenging. When dealing with a scheduled event or one that meets regularly, we have the wherewithal to plan accordingly. Strategizing for unanticipated situations is somewhat of a crap shoot. Accordingly, we assemble an emergency preparedness kit of practiced coping mechanisms that can be effective in any feared situation.

General Coping Strategies

Controlled Breathing

Controlled breathing reduces stress, increases our mental awareness, and boosts our immune system. Scientific studies show that this simple grounding technique helps moderate symptoms associated with anxiety, depression, and other stress-related conditions. Grounding distracts from negative stimuli by focusing on the present through our body and senses. It helps us manage our negative thoughts and reactions.

Our vagus nerve controls our heart rate and nervous system. It also manages our fight-or-flight response. Science tells us that the simplest way to manipulate our vagus nerve is to practice controlled breathing, which moderates the flow of cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress hormones while releasing mood and memory-enhancing chemical hormones like GABA and serotonin.

Positive Personal Affirmations

Positive personal affirmations are self-motivating and empowering statements that help us focus on goals, challenge negative, self-defeating beliefs, and reprogram our subconscious minds. We drastically underestimate the significance and effectiveness of PPAs because we need to understand their neuroscience. Providing all the neural benefits of positive reinforcement, our PPAs self-describe who and what we aspire to be in our emotional development. PPAs are rational, reasonable, possible, positive, unconditional, problem-focused, brief, and in first-person present or future time. Think of positive personal affirmations as aspirations or self-fulfilling prophecies that, through deliberate repetition, help replace our abundance of negative neural information with healthy, productive input.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)

PMR is another grounding technique. We progressively relax our muscle groups, beginning with the lower extremities and extending to the forehead. Like controlled breathing, there are long and short applications. Abbreviated PMR takes less than a minute and can be executed surreptitiously during any situation. This coping mechanism relieves the discomforting muscle tension aggravated by stress. It also reduces the influx of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones while momentarily distracting us from our negative thoughts and reactions.

Slow Talk

Our anxiety often compels us to mumble or rush our speaking under pressure. Slow talk is deliberately speaking slowly and calmly. It slows our physiological responses, alleviates rapid heartbeat, and lowers our blood pressure. It is also helpful to incorporate the 5-second rule, i.e., pause any response for five thoughtful seconds. Not only does this coping mechanism moderate the flow of cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress-provoking hormones, but it also presents the appearance of someone thoughtful and confident.

Coping Mechanisms for Anticipated Situations

Knowing our feared situation in advance gives us ample opportunity to devise a structured plan to counter our fears/anxieties. In providing rational responses to our negative emotional stimuli, we identify the feared situation, associated fears/anxieties, and corresponding ANTs. From there, we devise our rational responses by reframing the negative self-appraisal of our ANTs.

We develop a structured plan utilizing situationally focused coping mechanisms in a workshop environment. We practice the strategy in non-threatening simulations. This method is called graded exposure – systematic desensitization consisting of thought and behavioral modification techniques that reduce our sensitivity to feared situations.

When we feel adequately prepared, we expose ourselves to the feared situation.

In addition to the coping mechanisms already outlined, situationally specific coping mechanisms include the following:

Affirmative Visualization

An affirmative visualization is a positive outcome scenario we mentally create by imagining or visualizing it. All information passes through our brain’s thalamus, which makes no distinction between inner and outer realities. Whether we visualize doing something or actually do it, we stimulate the same regions of our neural network. Visualizing raising our left hand is, to our brain, the same thing as physically raising our left hand and produces the same neural benefits.

Affirmative visualization activates our dopaminergic-reward system, decreasing the neurotransmissions of anxiety and fear-provoking hormones and accelerating and consolidating the beneficial ones. When we visualize, our brain generates alpha waves, which can reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Research shows that visualizing a situation in advance improves our mental and physical performance. We consciously source information that will enhance our performance outcomes, dramatically improving the likelihood of success in the actual situation.

Character Focus

Focusing on our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements channels our emotional angst to mental deliberation, disparaging our fears/anxieties and corresponding ANTs. It supports the regeneration of our self-esteem as we rebuild our latent self-qualities. By manifesting our character strengths and achievements, we reframe our perspective, empowering our assets and generating renewed self-confidence and viability.

Distractions/Diversions

A distraction is another grounding technique that momentarily channels our attention away from our fears/anxieties. Also called directed attention, we focus on specific sensations, items, or activities to supersede moments of stress and discomfort in our feared situation. These physical and mental distractions temporarily remove us from our fears/anxieties and help us manage our negative thoughts and reactions. Snapping a rubber band on our wrist to momentarily ground our attention is a prime example of a distraction.

Persona

Our persona is the social face we present to our exposure situation(s), designed to make a focused impression while concealing the visibility of our social anxiety. We have multiple personas. We present differently depending upon the context of the situation, e.g., a sports event versus an interview for a job or a family dinner versus a fraternity bash.

A static or negative persona (e.g., SAD-induced) inhibits our psychological development. A strong sense of self-esteem relates to the outside world through flexible personas adaptable to different situations. Establishing a persona is similar to an actor preparing for a role. While we may employ new mannerisms, a different stride, or attitude, a persona is not another self. It is an affectation – a novel rendering of our personality. It is also a formidable distraction.

Projected Positive Outcome

Our projected positive outcome is the reasonable expectations we set for our feared situation. We already know the projected negative outcome if we capitulate to our ANTs. Therefore, we rationally respond by setting reasonable expectations. A sensible projected positive outcome is rational, practical, and doable to ensure success. For example, expecting to be immediately hired with a fantastic salary at a networking event is not a reasonable expectation. Making an initial and fruitful contact is a more reasonable projected positive outcome.

Purpose

Purpose is the primary motivation behind our exposure to a situation. What do we seek or hope to accomplish? Why are we exposing ourselves? If the situation is the barbershop or beauty salon (not uncommon sources of anxiety), it is reasonable to consider that our purpose is get our hair cut or styled. It may be something else, however. Purpose is a subjective determination.

Attending a social event offers multiple purposes. We may want to network, make friends, and seek an intimate relationship. Maintaining numerous purposes reduces the probability of success, leading to disappointment and self-recrimination. Therefore, we redefine and focus on one purpose and set reasonable expectations. To paraphrase a Russian proverb: if you chase two pigs, you have less chance of catching either one.

Small Talk

Small talk is an informal greeting, comment, or discourse absent any functional topic of conversation or transaction. In essence, it is polite, non-confrontational verbal interaction meant to acknowledge presence and or open channels of further communication. This activity is not as easy for those experiencing social anxiety as it appears. In interactive workshop activities, graded exposure defines the parameters and establishes the comfort zone critical to successful small talk.

SUDS Rating and Projected SUDS Rating

The Subjective Units of Distress Scale ranges from 0 to 100, measuring the severity of our situational fears/anxieties. Additionally, it allows us to set reasonable expectations of success. We evaluate what level of distress we anticipate in our feared situation (SUDS Rating) and what we project it will be upon its successful completion (Projected SUDS Rating). Again, we set reasonable expectations. A moderate projected SUDS rating will offer the probability of a successful venture. For example, if our SUDS rating of distress for making a presentation is 80, a reasonable projected SUDS rating might be 70 or 75. Projecting a 10 SUDS rating would imply that we expect a standing ovation and a national speaking tour. It’s possible, but it is an unreasonable expectation.

These coping mechanisms are specialized and focused on responding to expected and unanticipated feared situations. Exposing ourselves to a feared situation without a strategy and functional coping mechanisms is jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. In the words of a master of moderation, Benjamin Franklin, “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail.”

Coping Mechanisms for Everyday Stress

Anything that takes us out of the stress of the moment qualifies as an adaptive coping mechanism. From listening to music to tending a garden, coping mechanisms are as numerous and varied as individual experience and imagination.

To iterate, some will work for us, and others we will discard. Some will work sometimes and not at other times. Most are general activities like exercise, meditation, and creativity. The key is to become mindful when a pursuit helps us unwind from our anxieties and apprehensions and utilize them when the stressful occasion arises. Examples of coping mechanisms for everyday stress include:

Arts and Crafts: Pottery, knitting, photography, scrapbooks, candle and jewelry making.
DIY: Building, redecorating, reorganizing, constructing, painting.
Music: Soundscapes, chants, and ambient music can be restful and motivating; sound therapy therapeutic; and emotionally supportive music and songs stimulate the positive flow of chemical hormones.
Creative Pursuits: produce videos, write, read, play an instrument, visit a museum.
Connecting with nature reduces anger, fear, and stress and increases pleasant feelings while contributing to our physical well-being, lowering blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and the production of stress hormones. Spending time in nature is linked to both cognitive benefits and mood and emotional well-being improvements.
Personal Time: Take a relaxing bath, cuddle with the family pet, spend time with friends, colleagues, and family, fun shopping.
Physical Activity: Dancing, jogging, swimming, yoga, the gym.
Body Relaxation: Tapping, acupuncture, meditation, massage, autogenic relaxation.
Self-Empowering: Gratitude list, journaling, self-compassion, volunteering, random acts of kindness.

Coping mechanisms are tools and techniques with a wide range of uses. They assist in moderating our situational fears/anxieties and ANTs. They temporarily allow us to step outside the bullseye to objectively analyze our perceptions and reactions and respond rationally and productively. They also help us cope with everyday stress, anxiety, and other negative emotions.