Category Archives: ReChanneling

Regenerating Our Self-Esteem

Anxiety, Behavior, Cognitive Distortions, Mental Health, Psychology, ReChanneling, Self-Empowerment, Self-esteem, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , ,

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, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.   

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)   

“It is only when you have mastered the art of loving yourself
that you can truly love others.
It is only when you have opened your own heart
that you can touch the heart of others.”
– Robin Sharma

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Recent Posts

Perfectionism and Unreasonable Expectations

Coping Mechanisms for Social Anxiety

Negative Words Impede Recovery

Heaven’s Reward Fallacy

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.  

  1. Replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
  2. Produce rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to overwhelm the negative abundance of our neural network.
  3. 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. 

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

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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

Anxiety, Behavior, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Self-Empowerment, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

Social Anxiety

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, 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.  

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)   

space

Recent Posts

Perfectionism and Unreasonable Expectations

Coping Mechanisms for Social Anxiety

Negative Words Impede Recovery

Heaven’s Reward Fallacy

Dual Perspectives on Shame in Recovery

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. 

  1. Replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
  2. Produce rapid, concentrated neurological stimulation to overwhelm the negative abundance of our neural network.
  3. 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. 

__________

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.

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

*          *          *

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.

Perfectionism and Unreasonable Expectations

Anxiety, Cognitive Distortions, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

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.  

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)   

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.

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

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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.

Negative Words Impede Recovery

Anxiety, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

Robert F Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChannelng

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, 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.  

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)   

Negative Words Impede Recovery

“I believe that a negative statement is poison.
I’m convinced that the negative has power. It lives.
And if you allow it to perch in your house,
in your mind, in your life, it can take you over.”
— Maya Angelou

Words have enormous power; they influence, encourage, and destroy. They are a source of compassion, creativity, courage, and intimacy. They evoke desire, emotion, fear, and joy. They lift our spirits, inspire our imaginations, and plunge us into the depths of despair. 

Recovery Objectives

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 execute these goals through a three-pronged approach.

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

These comprise our overall strategy.

Negativity Trajectory

Childhood disturbance prompts our negative core and intermediate beliefs, which establish the attitudes, rules, and assumptions that produce our maladaptive understandings of the self and the world. 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 authentic.

Simply put, our neural network is replete with toxic information manifest by the negative words that convey our conditioning and disrupt our strategy.

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Negative Overabundance

We are consumed and conditioned by negative words. Some of us use the same unfortunate words over and over again. The more we hear, read, or speak a word or phrase, the more power it has over us. By the age of sixteen, for example, we have heard the word no from our parents roughly 135,000 times. 

Our SAD-induced adverse self-appraisal compels automatic negative thoughts of incompetency, undesirability, and other forms of negative self-labeling. The illusory truth effect describes how repeatedly hearing the same false information compels us to accept its veracity.

Our brain accelerates and consolidates learning through repetition.

Neural Negativity

Our neural network has structured itself around emotionally hostile information. 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. They support our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs).

Negative words cause our neural network to transmit chemical hormones that impair our logic, reasoning, and communication, impacting the parts of our brain that regulate our memory, concentration, and emotions.

Our recovery objective is to replace this information with positive, productive neural input. Additionally, positive reframing helps replace our negative thoughts and behaviors.

Negative Word Categories

Three categories or types of negative words concern us. Negative absolutes like no one, nobody, nothing, and nowhere substantiate our isolation and avoidance of relationships. Qualifiers such as barely, maybe, and perhaps devalue our commitment, while our self-appraisal, expressed by can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t, provokes our sense of incompetence and inferiority.

It is prudent to become mindful of and eliminate these types of words from our thoughts and vocabulary: 

Pressure Words

Pressure Words like should and would equivocate our commitment. “I should start my diet” means perhaps I will and maybe I won’t. Pressure words permit us to change our minds, procrastinate, and fail. (We are either on a diet or will be on a diet.) The pressure comes from the guilt of potentially doing nothing (I should’ve done that).

Negative Absolute Words

The impact of won’t, can’t, and the like is obvious. Consider the two statements: “I won’t learn much from that lecture” and “I will gain something from that lecture.” Which one offers the probability we will attend? Negative absolute words also include never, impossible, and every time. “Every time I try …”

Conditional Words 

Conditional words like possibly, maybe, and might weaken our commitment. They originate in doubt and manifest in avoidance and procrastination. “Maybe I will start my diet” is not a firm commitment. Qualifying and conditional words or statements provide an excuse to deviate and obfuscate. “I will not drink at the office party” is a more robust commitment than “I will not drink at the party unless I get nervous.” Qualifying or conditional words or statements are also pre-justifications for our failures. (I might have won if only …)  Other conditional words include ought, must, and have to.

Hate

Hate is a highly destructive sentiment to describe something we dislike. “I hate doing the dishes.” Do we really, or do we just dislike doing the dishes? Hate is an emotion; dislike is a feeling. Feelings quickly dissipate, while emotions can metastasize. Some experts argue the word or sense of hate has value in healing. Notwithstanding, the words correlate to rage, resentment, and fear, feelings we seek to moderate in recovery.

It is essential to remain mindful of the harmful nature of these words and eliminate them from our self-referencing thoughts and usage. They adversely impact the integrity and efficacy of our neural information as well as the replacement of negative thoughts and behaviors. 

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

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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.

Testimonials

Anxiety, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Self-Empowerment, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

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 are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior. 

The Value of Testimonials

Social anxiety disorder is ostensibly the most underrated and misunderstood psychological affliction.  It 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. 

Nicknamed the neglected anxiety disorder, SAD is routinely misdiagnosed. Few professionals understand it, and even fewer want to deal with it. Experts cite the mental health community’s difficulty distinguishing its symptoms and identifying specific etiological risk factors. 

The primary goal of recovery from social anxiety is the moderation of our irrational fears and anxieties. This is achieved through a three-pronged approach:

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

Consequently, one-size-fits-all approaches are inefficient. Recovery must consider the diversity of human thought and experience. That calls for a collaboration of neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. Philosophy, existentially defined, welcomes religious and spiritual insight. Additionally, individual environments, heritage, experiences, and associations reflect our wants, choices, and aspirations. If they are not given consideration, then we are not valued. 

Listening to and sharing the experiences and expertise of others broadens our perspective and understanding. Many of the ideas that eventually become an integral part of recovery come from the thoughts and contributions of colleagues and clients in our groups and workshops. Furthermore, by supplementing our workshops, posts, and publications with innovative and evolving ideas, opinions, and experiences, we better serve the community by providing a full and comprehensive overview of emotional malfunction and methods of recovery.

Client testimonials provide a narrow but measured perspective on how well we are listening and meeting our objectives.

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“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Valencia, Málaga, Madrid)

“I joined Robert’s SAD workshop at a time where I felt lost, alone, and unconfident. After a handful of weeks and exercises, Robert’s program provided me with the tools to start seeking and navigating relationships. Maintaining a social life is hard work, and Robert encourages the introspective work necessary to put our best foot forward while maintaining a constructive environment for us to overcome our social hang-ups.” – Bryce S. (Workshop Graduate)

I have never encountered such an efficient professional … His work transpires dedication, care, and love for what he does.” – Jose Garcia Silva, PhD, composer of Cosmos            

“I would like to say thank you for a well-organized learning experience. I can’t tell you how much I really appreciate this program. I feel so confident and ready to utilize these resources/tools you’ve provided.” – Trish D. (Workshop Graduate)      

“Thank you so much! I’m so excited! I really need this.” 
– Kelsey D. (Group Member)

“One of the most difficult things for those of us with social anxiety is to take the leap to join a recovery program. Dr. Mullen’s Social Anxiety Workshop has been a tremendous help for me in getting back control of my anxiety. The weekly workshops are tailored to the individual(s) learning style, and comfortability, so there was never a time I felt in over my head. It was not always easy work, but with Dr. Mullen’s positivity, compassion, and encouragement, I can say 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. (Workshop Graduate)

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“I’ve lived with social anxiety for decades. I spent many years (and thousands of dollars) on conventional talk therapy, self-help books, and medication, without experiencing any real change or relief. ReChanneling’s Social Anxiety Workshop produced results within a few sessions, with continuing improvement throughout the workshop and beyond. I’m now much more at ease in situations that were major sources of anxiety and avoidance for me just a few months ago. The shared experience of working through social anxiety with other people who “get it” is powerful … Dr. Mullen is truly committed to our growth and recovery.” – Liz D. (Workshop Graduate)

“A leading expert on social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities, Dr. Mullen is the father of proactive neuroplasticity.” – Lake Shore Unitarian Society, Winnetka, IL

“It is refreshing to work with an organization that possesses sincere commitment, ethics, and genuinely cares about its clients.”
– Sharon Hoery & Associates, Colorado

“I attended the online recovery workshop. Dr. Mullen is considered a leading expert on anxiety and depression, etc. If you want to regain your sense of self-worth and confidence, you may want to consider recovery. It’s a bit of work but well worth the effort.” – Matty S. (Workshop Graduate)

“Dr. Mullen hits the nail on the head with ReChanneling.” 
– Reverend Richard Carlini

“I like Robert’s SAD recovery program, especially how it’s taking many of my negative thoughts away and replacing them with positive ones. I also appreciate the others that are in our recovery group, as we all mingle quite well. And, of course, Robert is always there as nurturing and positive friend.” – Michael Z. (Workshop Graduate)

“I love his classes because the only pressure comes from within, not from the instructor, who clearly loves and knows what he is doing.” – Leon V. (Workshop Graduate)

“I am simply in awe at the writing, your insights, your deep knowing of transcendence, your intuitive understanding of psychic-physical pain, your connection of the pain to healing, your concept/title, and above all, your innate compassion.” – Janice Parker, PhD

“I do see the light at the end of the tunnel and that’s something I didn’t have before the workshop. As far as I’m concerned, that pretty much says it all.” – David C. (Workshop Graduate)                  

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

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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.

Positive Personal Affirmations

Anxiety, Behavior, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , ,

Robert F Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is PPA2.png

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 are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior. 

Positive Personal Affirmations

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)

The positive thinker sees the invisible,
feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”
– Winston Churchill

Positive personal affirmations (PPAs) are self-empowering, motivating statements of purpose that we repeat to ourselves to challenge our negative self-beliefs. Executing them repeatedly is one of the more efficient means of neural restructuring. Additionally, the power of suggestion supports the replacement of our toxic thoughts and helps regenerate our self-esteem.

In defining his counteroffensive in war, Sun Tzu wrote, “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” That is what we are doing with the deliberate, repetitive neural input (DRNI) of our PPAs. By barraging our brain with positive information, we are breaking down its resistance to healthy thoughts and behaviors due to our life-consistent negative self-beliefs.

Executing PPAs properly initiates the rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation that causes positive neural chain reactions. PPAs are the most effective way to accelerate and consolidate proactive neuroplasticity. Additionally, PNPs help us focus on goals, challenge negative, self-defeating beliefs, and reprogram our subconscious minds. 

Consequently, the three Rs of recovery – restructuring, replacing, and regenerating are satisfied.

Why We Dismiss PPAs

So, why do we resist executing this very elementary coping mechanism? Client interviews with persons recovering from emotional malfunction reveal a curious resistance to carrying out the simple task of implementing PPAs. Mindful of their value, we consistently fail to take advantage. Additionally, we rarely have a rational explanation.

So, let us discuss some reasons for our reticence.

Negativity Bias and Cognitive Bias

Humans are hard-wired with a negativity bias and inherently respond more favorably to adversity. Additionally, we have been inundated with SAD-provoked unhealthy thoughts and behaviors since adolescent onset. Our negative core and intermediate beliefs produce a cognitive bias that compels us to misinterpret information and make irrational decisions. PPAs, by definition, are positive manifestations that naturally conflict with our emotional trajectory.

Many of us disparage the new-age implications of PPAs. Even with recognition, comprehension, and acceptance of their benefits toward positive neural realignment, we find them silly and pretentious. Likewise, their 2000-year history in tantras and prayer compels us to dismiss them as archaic and impotent.

SAD is ostensibly the most underrated and misunderstood disorder. Its complexity disputes the effectiveness of simple and uncomplicated solutions. How can anything this straightforward contribute significantly to the restructuring of our neural network? 

The calculated regimen of deliberate, repetitive, neural information is not only tedious but also fails to deliver immediate tangible results, causing us to readily concede defeat and abandon hope in this era of instant gratification.

SAD drives us to disparage unfamiliar ideas and concepts. Our resistance to recovery and its tools and techniques is robust. Remember, humans are physiologically averse to change. We are hard-wired to resist anything that jeopardizes our status quo. Our brain’s inertia senses and repels change, and our basal ganglia resist any modification to behavior patterns. 

Finally, since childhood, we have been badgered by parents and other influencers to think positively. However, they rarely considered the supporting scientific evidence. Cajoling someone to do something without explanation is like teaching a puppy to walk on its hind legs. It eventually learns, but only under duress, and probably resents its trainer. It is not self-motivated and does not perform without an audience. 

In the wise words of Leonardo da Vinci, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”

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Complex Simplicity

On the surface, creating PPAs sounds easy, but it is deceptively complex for SAD persons. It is challenging to grasp how years of negative self-beliefs are compensated by a few choice words. Our brains, however, do not think. They are neural reciprocators. Therefore, the intent and input of positive neural information compensate for our low implicit and explicit self-esteem.

That’s why mindfulness of the science behind proactive neuroplasticity is so important. If our PPAs meet the criteria for good information, our neural network will recognize them and restructure accordingly, whether we believe our information or not.

Power of Suggestion

Additionally, the power of suggestion instigates positive changes in our thoughts and behaviors. Psychology attributes it to our ‘response expectancies,’ or what I refer to as self-fulfilling prophecies. Response expectancies refer to our anticipation of a positive response. Similar to affirmative visualizations, PPAs are positive outcome scenarios that we mentally imagine or visualize.

All information passes through our thalamus – the small structure located just above the stem between the cerebral cortex and the midbrain. It has extensive nerve connections to both. By visualizing activity, we increase activity in the thalamus and our brain responds as though the activity is really happening. Our thalamus makes no distinction between inner and outer realities. Visualizing raising our left hand is, to our brain, the same thing as physically raising our left hand.

Any idea or suggestion, if contemplated solidly, will take on a semblance of reality. If we visualize a solution to a problem, the problem begins to resolve itself because visualizing activates the cognitive circuits involved with our working memory.

Neural Wiring

Neurons don’t act by themselves but through neural circuits that strengthen or weaken their connections based on electrical activity. The deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information from PPAs compels neurons to fire repeatedly, causing them to wire together. The more repetitions, the more robust the new connections. 

Hebbian Learning

Neuroscientist Donald Hebb pioneered the correlation between psychology and neuroscience as it relates to behavior. Hebbian Learning is a complex algorithm that is best summarized as “neurons that fire together wire together.” That means the simultaneous activation of nearby neurons leads to an increase in the strength of synaptic connections between them. While our input of information is not simultaneous, the corresponding reactivity of participating neurons produces the same response. PPAs accelerate and consolidate learning by causing neural circuits to strengthen and forward information.

Neural Reciprocation

Multiple repetitions of positive information activate millions of neurons that reciprocate that energy in abundance. Like any neural input of information, PPAs spark receptor neurons that forward positive energy to millions of participating neurons, causing a cellular chain reaction in multiple interconnected areas. Remember, our brain doesn’t distinguish healthy from toxic information. Positive information in, positive energy reciprocated in abundance. Conversely, negative information in, negative energy reciprocated in abundance. Thus, the value of positive information.

Three PPAs repeated five times, three times daily generates forty-five cellular chain reactions, dramatically accelerating and consolidating the restructuring of our neural network. The process takes approximately five minutes out of our day.

Cortisol and Adrenaline

PPAs decrease the flow of the fear and anxiety-provoking hormones, cortisol and adrenaline while simultaneously producing hormones for memory, learning, and concentration. Scientists have identified over fifty chemical hormones in the human body. They are the messengers that control our physiological functions – our metabolism, homeostasis, and reproduction. Their distribution is precise. Even slight changes in levels can cause significant disruption to our health as in the cases of cortisol, adrenaline, and other fight or flight-inducing hormones.

Cortisol and adrenaline are called fear and anxiety-provoking hormones.  Under stress, our amygdala signals our hypothalamus and sympathetic nervous control systems in the brain stem. The hypothalamus, in turn, alerts our cortisol and adrenaline hormones. This stress-related trajectory is stored in our physiological memory bank and the more the process is repeated, the more we are negatively impacted by these hormones.

Chronic stress induced by our SAD symptomatology causes a higher, more constant influx of cortisol, adrenaline, norepinephrine and other stress hormones into our system. Not only does this increase the risk of health problems like heart disease and stroke, but it contributes significantly to our anxiety and depression, causing problems with memory, cognition, and sleep patterns. PPAs help reduce the influx of these neural transmissions.

Other Benefits

The deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information also activates long-term potentiation, which increases the strength of the nerve impulses along the connecting pathways, generating more energy. Additionally, PPAs amplify the activity of our axon pathways, creating higher levels of BDNF (brain-derived neural factor) proteins. We accelerate learning and unlearning through deliberate repetition.

Criteria for Robust PPAs

The most effective PPAs are constructed using the following seven criteria.

  • Rational: Our objective is to subvert the irrationality of our negative self-beliefs. It is illogical to cause ourselves harm. Irrationality is self-destructive because it subverts the truth.
  • Reasonable: Of 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 counter-productive and futile. I will win a Grammy is not a viable option to the tone-deaf.
  • 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 Time: The past is immutable, and the future is indeterminate.
  • Succinct: Brief, clearly expressed, and easily memorized.

The most effective PPAs are calculated and specific to our intention. Are we challenging the negative thoughts and behaviors of our social anxiety? Are we reaffirming the character strengths and virtues that support recovery and transformation? Are we focused on a specific challenge? What is our end goal – the personal milestone we want to achieve? 

The process of proactive neuroplasticity is theoretically simple but challenging, due to the commitment and endurance required for the long-term, repetitive process. We do not don tennis shorts and advance to Wimbledon without decades of practice with rackets and balls; philharmonics cater to pianists who have spent years at the keyboard.

As described earlier, neural restructuring requires a calculated regimen of deliberate, repetitive, neural information that is not only tedious but also fails to deliver immediate tangible results. Fortunately, the universal law of compensation anticipates this. The positive impact of PPAs is exponential due to the abundant reciprocation of positive energy, the neural benefits, and the transmissions of hormones that accelerate and consolidate learning.

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

*          *          *

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.

ReChanneling: Updates and Happenings, Summer 2023

Anxiety, Behavior, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, ReChanneling, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid Málaga)   

Here are some of ReChanneling’s activities through the spring and summer.

New Saturday Workshop

Due to multiple requests and the overflow for our current workshop, we have scheduled an additional social anxiety recovery workshop for Saturday mornings. 

VIDEO #8 in our Proactive Neuroplasticity series

Social Anxiety: It’s Not Your Fault

We are editing the eighth video installment on Proactive Neuroplasticity. The YouTube video will also be viewed on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, BitChute, ReChanneling.org, and Regimed Pharmacy,

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

  1. Introduction
  2. Three Forms of Neuroplasticity
  3. Tools and Techniques
  4. Positive Personal Affirmations
  5. Challenging Self-Destructive Thoughts
  6. Affirmative Visualization
  7. Constructing Our Neural Information

Upcoming Book

We are currently editing with Springer Publications our upcoming book, tentatively titled The War for our Emotional Well-Being. Recovery from Social Anxiety and Other Emotional Malfunctions. Prior to publication, we will enlist support and criticism from our peers at Academia.edu and ResearchGate. We appreciate the excellent support from individuals who commented on our website postings that are drafts of what is transcribed into the book.

The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity, and references to one include the other. The tools and techniques provided in this book focus on social anxiety but are applicable to most emotional malfunctions, including depression, substance abuse,  panic disorder, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and self-esteem and motivational issues. They originate uniformly, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.

Statistics

Dr. Mullen’s publications are viewed worldwide. Academia.edu and ResearchGate claim roughly 1,000 academic readers,  and Google Scholar reports 31 citations in books and journals. ReChanneling’s website, YouTube, and other sources (not including social media) have been accessed over 25,000 times.

All of Dr. Mullen’s chapters and articles, including “Utilizing Psychobiography to Moderate Symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder,” “The Extraordinariness of the ‘Ordinary’ Extraordinary,” and “Enlisting Positive Psychologies to Challenge Love within SAD’s Culture of Maladaptive Self-Beliefs” are available upon request. Contact us.

LINK to Other Publications

Recent Posts

ReChanneling’s website is updated weekly.

Academia.edu

Academia.edu continues to offer two ReChanneling courses: Neuroscience and Happiness: A Guide to Neuroplasticity and Positive Behavioral Change and Social Anxiety in the LGBTQ+ Community.

Support Groups

ReChanneling currently facilitates over 1000 individuals with social anxiety disorder in our two discussion groups. Social Anxiety and Proactive Neuroplasticity and LGBTQ+ Social Anxiety Group.

A third discussion group, ReChanneling: Recovery and Empowerment focuses on proactive neuroplasticity in the pursuit of goals and objectives.

Seminars/Lectures

  • (2/25) Lake Shore Unitarian Society, Illinois
  • (6/19) SF’s Magic Theatre/SF AIDS Foundation
  • (9/8) Tedx, Las Vegas
  • (9/9) Sacramento’s The Exchange
  • (2/5/25) THSFW – Tucson Hard-Sci SF Writers
  • (3/20/25 ) APA Western Division Conference, Portland

Schedules for upcoming workshops and presentations are provided on ReChanneling’s website.

Some Testimonials

“I like Robert’s SAD recovery program, especially how it’s taking many of my negative thoughts away and replacing them with positive ones. I also appreciate the others that are in our recovery group, as we all mingle quite well. And, of course, Robert is always there as nurturing and positive friend.” – Michael Z. 

“I have never encountered such an efficient professional … His work transpires dedication, care, and love for what he does.” –  Jose Garcia Silva, PhD, Composer Cosmos          

“I am simply in awe at the writing, your insights, your deep knowing of transcendence, your intuitive understanding of psychic-physical pain, your connection of the pain to healing … and above all, your innate compassion.” – Jan Parker, PhD

“A leading expert on social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities, Dr. Mullen is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity, enabled by the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information (DRNI).” Lakeshore Unitarian Society  

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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.

Coping Strategies for Social Anxiety

Anxiety, Behavior, Coping Mechanisms, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

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.  

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)   

Coping Strategies for Social Anxiety

“Success depends upon previous preparation,
and without such preparation, there is sure to be failure.”
– Confucius

Social anxiety disorder 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. Our recovery goal is the general outcome we mean to achieve. The objectives are the actions or measurable steps taken to achieve our goal.  

Our goal, then, is the dramatic moderation of our fears of social interconnectivity. 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 are the methods or approaches we devise to execute these objectives. Coping mechanisms are tools and techniques that implement our strategies. The distinction is important.

We are at war, and social anxiety is the enemy. Successfully challenging our fears/anxieties requires an adaptive plan of action. A military strategist is skilled in designing a plan to overwhelm the enemy. As strategists for our recovery, we are responsible for developing a cohesive plan to meet our three objectives. These can involve multiple strategies.

Situations

A situation is a set of circumstances – the facts, conditions, and incidents affecting us at a particular time in a specific 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 include those that we know, in advance, will provoke our fears/anxieties.  Examples range from restaurants and the classroom to job interviews, family gatherings, and social events. They can be one-time situations like a job interview or social event. They can be recurring situations such as the classroom or work environment.

Unexpected situations are those that catch us by surprise. An accident, an unexpected guest, and losing your wallet are unexpected situations. 

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Automatic Negative Thoughts

Automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) are the immediate, involuntary, emotional expressions that occur when our situational fears/anxieties confront us. 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.

ANTs are borne of our negative core and intermediate beliefs and the symptoms of our social anxiety, e.g., “No one will talk to me.” “I will do something stupid.” “I am a loser.” Adverse behaviors consequently accompany these self-maligning thoughts.

Identifying situations and unpacking associated fears and corresponding ANTs are crucial to recovery. Our issues are as distinctive as our environments and experiences.

9-Step Process for Rational Response

Moderating our associated fears/anxieties and corresponding ANTs demands an integrated approach. Through what we call the 9-Step Process for Rational Response, we learn to: 

1. Identify our Feared Situation. Where are we when we feel anxious or fearful and what activities are involved? What are we thinking? What might we be doing? Who and what impacts these insecure feelings? 

2. Identify our Associated Fear(s). One way to identify our associated fears/anxieties is to ask ourselves the following: What is problematic about 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?

3. Unmask our Corresponding ANTs. How do we express our fear/anxieties? What are our involuntary emotional expressions or images? How do we negatively self-label? What do we tell ourselves?

4. Examine and Analyze Our Fear(s) and ANTs. What are the stimuli to our fears/anxieties? How do we express them? Discovery approaches include cognitive comprehension, introspection, psychoeducation, and the vertical arrow technique.

5. Generate Rational Responses. We become mindful of the irrationality and self-destructive nature of our associated fears/anxieties and corresponding ANTs. We unmask, examine, and analyze the cognitive distortions and maladaptive behaviors that validate or reinforce them. Then, we devise rational responses to counter our false assumptions.

Cognitive distortions are exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that 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. Rational Responses are self-empowering statements we devise to counter our situational fears/anxieties and ANTs.

6. Reconstruct Our Thought Patterns. Through proactive neuroplasticity and cognitive approaches, we reframe or convert our thought patterns by replacing or overwhelming them with healthy productive ones. This is an essential component of recovery.

7. Devise a Structured Plan. Utilizing our learned tools and techniques, we develop our coping strategies and mechanisms to challenge our situational fears/anxieties, irrational thoughts, and maladaptive behaviors.

8. Practice the Plan in Non-Threatening Situations. We strengthen our rational responses by repeatedly implementing our plan in simulated situations and practicing exercises, including role-play and other workshop interactivities.

9. Expose Ourselves to the Situation. We challenge our fears/anxieties on-site in real-life situations. This transpires after a suitable period of graded exposure to accommodate the reconstruction of our neural network and ensure familiarity with our strategies and coping mechanisms.

Coping Strategies

Coping strategies are processes or tools to help us manage stress. Since maladaptive is particular to social anxiety disorder, we emphasize adaptive strategies to counter our negative thoughts and behaviors. Researchers claim over 400 coping strategies designed to address emotional malfunction, including problem, emotion, social, and meaning-focused.

Our recovery programs emphasize response-focused and solution-focused strategies, but we consider multiple approaches in an individually targeted recovery program.

Emotion-focused coping strategies focus on managing or regulating our emotional response to feared situations. Identifying the emotions associated with a stressor is essential to moderating them. In the first three of our 9-Step Process for Rational Response, we identify the feared situation, associated fears/anxieties, and corresponding ANTs.

Problem-focused coping strategies employ the same tools and techniques as our solution-focused strategy. One crucial distinction: the pathographic disease model of mental health focuses on the problem, whereas the wellness model we favor emphasizes the solution.

Recovery is a here-and-now process. The past is immutable. We have no control over it beyond our response to it. It is the here-and-now and how it reflects on the future that is of value in recovery.

Meaning-focused coping strategies entail rationalizing or delegating responsibility for our thoughts and behaviors to a moral or religious code or influence, which can encourage negatively valanced emotions like shame, guilt, and blame. The more rational approach emphasizes personal accountability and self-determination.

Social coping strategies are essential to counter our fears of human interconnectivity and avoidance of social situations. Graded exposure includes practiced cognitive-behavioral techniques that reduce sensitivity to our feared situations. The 9-Step Process for Rational Response encourages systematic desensitization of our fears/anxieties in non-threatening workshop environments before exposure to real-life situations.

Avoidance-focused coping strategies pursue alternate activities to avoid situations that endanger our emotional well-being. They are short-term solutions. In the long term, we moderate our fears/anxieties by learning to respond rationally to them, allowing us to engage in feared situations at our discretion.

Avoidance is a major symptom of our social anxiety, and our primary goal is to moderate our anxieties/fears rather than avoid them.

Restructuring, replacing, and regenerating comprise the framework for recovery and self-empowerment. A coalescence of coping strategies is needed to accommodate these goals as well as the diversity of human thought and experience.

Best Strategies for Social Anxiety

Response-based coping strategies, which we focus on in our recovery programs, pay particular attention to generating rational responses to our maladaptive thoughts and behaviors. We facilitate this component of recovery in the first four of the 9-Step Process for Rational Response. Further consolidation is achieved through cognitive comprehension, introspection, psychoeducation, and other psychological and scientific approaches.

Solution-based strategies keep our attention centered on finding solutions rather than researching the origins of our problems. Recovery is a here-and-now and how it reflects on the future process. We define ourselves by our character strengths, virtues, and attributes rather than our symptoms. Delving into the origins and early trajectory of our negative thoughts and behavior, if deemed necessary, is the purview of psychoanalysis.

Recovery relies on self-reliance and self-motivation. The onus rests with the recovering individual. A comprehensive recovery program is individually targeted and emphasizes the solution, rather than the problem.

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

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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 scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.

The Character Resume

Anxiety, Behavior, Depression, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Self-Empowerment, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , , ,

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 are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, panic disorder, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior. 

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)   

The Character Resume

“Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power,
but in character and goodness. People are just people,
and all people have faults and shortcomings,
but all of us are born with a basic goodness.”
– Anne Frank

A character resume is a written 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.

Mindfulness is recognition, cognition, and acceptance of reality, as opposed to an opinion or belief lacking evidence or foundation. Self-esteem is mindfulness of our value to self, society, and the world. The trajectory of our negative self-beliefs disrupts the development of our positive self-qualities. This, then, erodes mindfulness of our inherent and acquired character strengths, virtues, and attributes. Fortunately, these qualities are not erased but misplaced, lost, stolen, or compartmentalized away from our consciousness.

The definition of recovery is regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost. In social anxiety and comorbidities, what has been stolen or lost is our emotional well-being and quality of life.

Insufficient Satisfaction of Needs

Self-esteem can further be understood as a complex interrelationship between how we think about ourselves, how we think others perceive us, and how we process and present that information. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs reveals how childhood disturbance and subsequent negative self-beliefs disrupt our emotional development by denying us satisfaction of certain fundamental needs.

Core beliefs of abandonment, detachment, exploitation, and neglect subvert certain biological, physiological, and emotional support. This lacuna negatively impacts our self-esteem which we express by undervaluing our positive qualities. Again, this does not signify obliteration, but diminishment or latency due to inactivity or suppression. 

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Purpose of the Character Resume

In his examination of anxiety and depression, 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. 

Again, to emphasize Sun Tzu’s words of wisdom, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” I am continually amazed at how little SAD persons know their symptoms. It is as if, by ignoring them, they do not exist or will somehow go away. Ignorance is a major impediment to recovery. How can we fix something if we do not know why it malfunctions? How do we regenerate our character qualities if we remain blissfully unaware of what they are? Thus, the value of the character resume.

An objective of recovery is to become mindful of our inherent and acquired character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements. This includes mutual consideration of our shortfalls, as well. Again, we are repairing our brokenness.

Elements of a Character Resume

What goes into our character resume? The simple answer is anything and everything that stimulates a positive personal response including our successes, achievements, contributions, personal milestones, talents, charitable deeds, and happy memories.

How does building a character resume support our recovery?

Overwhelming Negativity

Childhood disturbance generates negative core beliefs that influence our intermediate attitudes, rules, and assumptions. These attributions produce a cognitive bias that compels us to misinterpret information and make self-destructive decisions. Since we humans are hard-wired with a negativity bias, we already respond more favorably to adversity. Add our SAD symptomatology and our neural network is replete with toxic information.

We convey this in our thoughts, behaviors, and the words we use to express them.

Throughout our lives, we are consumed and conditioned by adversity. SAD sustains itself through our negative self-beliefs and image. By the age of sixteen, we have heard the word no from our parents, roughly, 135,000 times. Some of us use the same unfortunate characterizations repeatedly. It is not just the words we say aloud in criticism and conversations. The self-annihilating words we silently call ourselves support our adverse thoughts and behaviors.

Additionally, we are continuously impacted by outside negative forces over which we have limited to no control, such as life’s vicissitudes, physical deterioration, and subjected hostilities.

Our neural network is replete with negative information. A character resume is a constant, visual reminder of our value and significance.

Utilizing Our Character Resume

The primary goal of recovery from social anxiety is the moderation of our irrational fears and anxieties. This is achieved through a three-pronged approach.

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

These comprise our overall strategy.

Replace

The goal is to replace or overwhelm our adverse thoughts and behaviors with positive ones. Our character resume is constructed with our positive qualities, achievements, and memories. It is these attributions that replace the abundance of negative self-beliefs acquired throughout life. These qualities that were lost, misplaced, or compartmentalized, are retrieved and recognized through recovery approaches, e.g., personal introspection and inventory, memory work, cognitive comprehension, and other tools and techniques. They are subsequently input into our character resume.

Restructure

Proactive neuroplasticity produces rapid, neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network. Our brain receives around two million bits of data per second but is capable of processing roughly 126 bits, so it is important to provide substantial information. DRNI is the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of Information. A deliberate act is a premeditated one; we initiate and control the process. Repetition accelerates and consolidates neural renewal and connectivity. Information that is sound, reasonable, goal-focused, and unconditional determines its strength and integrity. The information we assemble in our character resume generates the most efficient words and statements to accelerate and consolidate the process of neural restructuring.

Regenerate

Regenerate means to renew or restore something, especially after it has been damaged or lost. The qualities that comprise our self-esteem have been misplaced, lost, stolen, or compartmentalized away from our consciousness due to the disruption in our psychological development.

The process of regeneration in recovery is supported by clinically practical tools and techniques designed for the process. Also, the three goals or strategies of recovery – replace, restructure, and regenerate – are complementary and mutually interactive.

What Goes Into our Character Resume?

Some of the entries into our character resume include our positive personal affirmations, rational response to our ANTs, affirmative visualizations, character strengths, virtues, and attributes rediscovered through various exercises, retrievable happy memories, and self-esteem attributes from various inventories.

One additional and equally important benefit of a character resume is the constant and renewed reminder of what we have complied on the written page. It is an invaluable resource to moderate those situations that may continue to generate automatic negative thoughts, behaviors, and other adverse self-beliefs.

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Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

*          *          *

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 scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.

Know the Enemy: Social Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety, Behavior, Mental Health, Neuroplasticity, Psychology, ReChanneling, Social Anxiety, Social anxiety disorder, , ,

Robert F Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid Málaga)   

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 are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, panic disorder, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior. 

Know the Enemy: Social Anxiety Disorder

The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.
– Nelson Mandela

Social anxiety disorder is the most underrated, misunderstood, and misdiagnosed disorder. Nicknamed the neglected anxiety disorder, few experts understand SAD and even fewer know how to address it. Recovery is best conducted by someone who has experienced social anxiety disorder and knows how to deal with it. When we go to war, we are not led by a theoretician, but by a tactician who has experienced battle. And make no mistake about it, we are at war and social anxiety disorder is the enemy.

Know Your Enemy

To successfully engage this sinister adversary we must learn its tactics and the scope of its weaponry. From that, we devise our stratagem. That is the substance of recovery. This is a war for control over our emotional well-being and quality of life. 

As the world’s third-largest mental health care problem, SAD is culturally identifiable by our persistent fear of social interaction and performance situations. Our suspicions of criticism, ridicule, and rejection are so severe, we avoid the healthy life experiences that interconnect us to others and the world. It is not the fears that devastate our lives; it is the things we do to avoid them. We have far more to fear from our distorted perceptions than what we might encounter in the real world. Our imagination takes us to dark and lonely places. 

Automatic Negative Thoughts

Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) are anxiety-provoking thoughts or emotions that occur in anticipation of or reaction to a situation. They are unpleasant expressions of our self-perspectives – predetermined assumptions of what will happen when we expose ourselves to our fears.
(“I am incompetent. “No one will talk to me.” “I’ll say something stupid.”)  . 

These cognitively distorted responses stem from an endless feedback loop of hopelessness, helplessness, undesirability, and worthlessness, leading to self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. 

We fear the unknown and unexplored. We obsess about upcoming events and how we will reveal our shortcomings. We experience anticipatory anxiety for weeks before a situation and anticipate the worst. We remember those events in high school when we were the last to be chosen. The times we felt shunned when we tried to interconnect. SAD sustains itself by focusing on the negative aspects of our life. 

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Defining Recovery

The definition of recovery is regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost. In neuroses such as anxiety, depression, and comorbidities, what has been stolen or lost is our emotional well-being and quality of life.

Symptoms

Chronic and debilitating, SAD attacks on all fronts, manifesting in mental confusion, emotional instability, physical dysfunction, and spiritual malaise. Emotionally, we are despondent and lonely. We are subject to unwarranted sweating, trembling, hyperventilation, nausea, and muscle spasms. Mentally, our thoughts are discordant and irrational. Spiritually, we define ourselves as inadequate and insignificant. Additionally, many of us endure depression and turn to substance abuse to blunt the pain of our condition.

The Here and Now

While we understand the relevance of past circumstances, the focus of recovery is on the present and the solution. In the case of David Z., his recollections of childhood physical and emotional abuse helped him understand and moderate his mistrust and intimacy. Recovery, for the most part, is a here-and-now endeavor. Understanding the past is not unhelpful, but it is not our priority. The past is immutable, the future definable by our actions in the present.

Trapped and Crippled

Do you feel trapped in a vicious circle, restricted from living a normal life: Do you feel alienated from your peers and isolate yourself from family and friends? Do you spurn new relationships in anticipation of rejection? Do you repeat the same mistakes over and over again?  

As one client sorrowfully confided, “Anxiety has crippled me, locked me in a cage and has become my master.”

Feeling anxious or apprehensive in certain situations is normal; most of us are nervous speaking in front of a group and anxious when visiting our dentist. The typical individual recognizes the normality of a situation and accords appropriate attention. The SAD person dreads it, dramatizes it, and obsesses about its perceptual ramifications. We make mountains out of molehills and spend our days in tortuous anticipation of projected negative outcomes. We guarantee our failure through SAD-fulfilling prophecies.

We intuitively know it is an irrational and maddening way to live. We have tried everything to circumvent our behavioral patterns, yet nothing seems to work. That is because SAD thrives on counterproductivity, a tactic that provokes the opposite of the desired effect.

Established recovery approaches fail because they are not designed to address this peculiarity. SAD is the ultimate enigma – an intractable condition difficult to comprehend. The purpose of recovery is to unravel the enigma and defeat the enemy. Know your enemy.

Do you feel like you are under a microscope, and everyone is judging or criticizing you? Do you worry you are making a poor impression on individuals who do not matter? Are you inordinately concerned about what you might do, how you look, and how you express yourself? 

We live with persistent anxiety and fear of social situations such as dating, interviewing for a position, and contributing to class. We anticipate others will deem us incompetent, stupid, or undesirable. Often, mere functionality in perfunctory situations – eating in front of others, riding a bus, using a public restroom – is unduly stressful. 

The fear that manifests in social situations seems so fierce, we feel it is uncontrollable, a conclusion that manifests in perceptions of weakness and helplessness. We avoid situations where there is the potential for mistakes; imperfection is intolerable. Constant negative self-evaluation disrupts our desire to pursue a goal, attend school, or form relationships.

SAD Symptoms, Fears, and Apprehensions

Social Interaction

Do you imagine you are the curiosity in the room – the scrutiny of everyone’s attention? Do you worry that people will notice you sweating or blushing? That your voice will tremble and become incoherent?

We are overly concerned that our fears and anxieties are glaringly obvious to everyone. The overriding fear of being found wanting manifests in our self-perspectives of incompetence and unattractiveness. We walk on eggshells, supremely conscious of our awkwardness, surrendering to the GAZE―the anxious state of mind that comes with the fear of being the center of attention.

We are reminded of that phrase from the Book of David: “You have been weighed on the scales and you have been found wanting.” It is a self-perception difficult to reconcile when SAD is the scale upon which we are being weighed. 

Our social interactions are clumsy, small talk inelegant, and attempts at humor embarrassing. Our anticipation of repudiation motivates us to dismiss overtures to offset the possibility of rejection. SAD is repressive and intractable, imposing self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors. It establishes its authority through defeatist measures produced by cognitively distorted and maladaptive interpretations of reality.

Maladaptive Behavior

Maladaptive behavior is a term created by Aaron Beck, the pioneer of cognitive-behavioral therapy. A unique characteristic of SAD, maladaptive behaviors are manifestations of our symptoms. As a result of our negative core and immediate beliefs, our attitudes, rules, and assumptions are distorted, and we adapt negatively (maladapt) to positive situations. Attitudes refer to our emotions, convictions, and behaviors. Rules are the principles or regulations that influence our behaviors. Our assumptions are what we believe to be true or real.

Cognitive Distortions

Cognitive distortions are the exaggerated or irrational thought patterns involved in the perpetuation of anxiety and depression. They reinforce or justify our errant thoughts and poor behaviors. In essence, we twist reality to comport with our negative self-beliefs and image. We filter, personalize, blame, and catastrophize. There are thirteen cognitive distortions that are particularly germane to social anxiety.

Do you incessantly replay adverse events in your head? Do you constantly relive all the discomforting things that happened to you during the day? Do you avoid meeting people or going on dates because you anticipate disaster? Do you beat yourself up for all those lost opportunities? 

We circle the block endlessly before confronting a situation, then end up avoiding it entirely. We avoid recognition in the classroom, our hearts pounding, hands sweaty, hoping we will not be singled out. We lay awake at night, consumed by all the negative events of the day. 

We crave companionship but shun social situations for fear others will find us unattractive or stupid. We avoid speaking in public, expressing opinions, and fraternizing with peers.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is mindfulness of our value and significance to ourselves, society, and the world. It is honest and nonjudgmental mindfulness of our flaws as well as our assets. It can be further understood as a complex interrelationship between how we think about ourselves, how we think others perceive us, and how we process and present that information. Persons living with SAD have significantly lower implicit and explicit self-esteem relative to healthy controls. Our negative core and intermediate beliefs are directly implicated. Our symptomatic fears and anxieties aggravate this deficiency.

Negatively Valenced Emotions

We blame ourselves for our lack of social skills. We feel shame for our inadequacies. We guilt ourselves when we avoid getting close to someone, terrified of rejection. Negatively valanced is a psychological term used to characterize specific emotions that adversely affect our daily lives. Emotions like shame, guilt, and resentment negatively impact our thoughts, behaviors, and relationships. We know these feelings are irrational, we know we are not responsible for its onset, but our social anxiety compels us to self-loath and self-destruct. Then to top it off, we consistently beat ourselves up for these feelings that are the product of emotional dysfunction that is not of our doing.

Recovery

We do not have to live like this. We do not have to be afraid to connect with others. We do not have to constantly agonize over how we will be perceived. We do not have to worry about criticism and ridicule from strangers. By deliberately and repetitively feeding our neural network with healthy information, we proactively transform our thoughts and behaviors from self-doubt and avoidance to self-assured expressions of our relevance and contributions.

We must stop beating ourselves up. We did not ask for our social anxiety disorder. We did not make it happen; it happened to us. We are, however, responsible for doing something about it. We are the captains of our ship. The onus of recovery is on us; no one else does it for us. It comes down to a simple choice. Are we happy with who we are now, or would we like to change for the better? Do we choose to be miserable or to be happy? It is cut and dried. The tools and techniques for recovery are ours for the taking. 

We are engaged in a war that is not easily won – a life-consuming series of battles. The process of proactive neuroplasticity is theoretically simple but challenging, due to the commitment and endurance required for the long-term, repetitive process. We do not don tennis shorts and advance to Wimbledon without decades of practice with rackets and balls. Philharmonics cater to pianists who have spent years at the keyboard.

Neural restructuring requires a calculated regimen of deliberate, repetitive, neural information that is not only tedious but also fails to deliver immediate tangible results, causing us to readily concede defeat and abandon hope in this era of instant gratification. However, once we initiate the process of recovery, utilizing the appropriate tools and techniques, progress is exponential. The rewards far outweigh the process.

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

*          *          *

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 scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.

Committing to recovery is one of the hardest things you will
ever do. It takes enormous courage and the realization that
you are of value, consequential, and deserving of happiness.