Social Anxiety trigger: People thinking you’re anxious

This may be an anxiety trigger because you believe that no one should ever see or think of you as an anxious person. 

In some cases, you may knowingly or unknowingly think such opinions can prevent you from getting what you want or lead to other people thinking you’re defective, weak, etc. Whenever you think something can impact getting what you want, we recommend you think deeply about whether that is true. We recommend the article “Getting what you want”  for help on that. It is true that some people may label you those things (defective, weak, etc) but if you take time to think about it, you’ll likely find that those labels don’t do anything. That’s not to say they aren’t labels you’d prefer to avoid.

If those labels are going to prevent you from getting what you want, be sure that what you say you want, is actually what you want. If it is, you can then focus your time and energy on eliminating the anxiety triggers causing you to be anxious in the moments you care about. We have resources to help you eliminate those triggers.

You may also want to reflect on whether the environment or the people you’re dealing with to get what you want are the right fit for you. 

Some environments for example, care more about the value you can or are willing to provide–now or in the future–instead of whether or not you get anxious. 

Eliminating the trigger

Ultimately, you have to become ok(aka accept) with the possibility of others seeing or thinking (correctly or incorrectly) you’re anxious. If you don’t accept this, you are, in essence, saying those are reasons for you to be anxious, which makes your brain register those situations as things to trigger bodily anxiety for. Once you come to a place where you’re ok with people seeing you anxious, despite you not wanting them to think or see that, you can focus your time and energy on eliminating your anxiety triggers. 

This can be helpful because eliminating your triggers is what’s going to address the root problem of you getting anxious in front of others. The fewer triggers you have, the less anxiety you’ll experience by yourself or with others.

If you find it difficult to accept

If you’re finding it difficult to accept that getting rid of this trigger requires you to be ok with people seeing you anxious, despite you not wanting them to see, you probably have 1 or more reasons (likely unconscious and unique to you) why you think you should be anxious about other people seeing or thinking you’re anxious. To address this, you will have to uncover these reasons so they are out in plain sight. Uncovering these reasons alone may dissolve the trigger. Doing this work will also likely reveal what happened to you ( in the past) that led you to view people seeing you nervous as something you should be anxious about. You can use our resource in the recommended reading section, “How to eliminate an anxiety trigger”, to uncover your reasons. It’s free for users with accounts on Clarity. 

Best,

Note: See our full list of our social anxiety trigger insights and solutions. You can also view our social anxiety home page which contains all our root cause solutions (for SA fears and triggers) and critical insights.

Recommended reads for overcoming social anxiety (link)

Looking for more?

If you’d like to dig deeper or want 1on1 help let us know. Otherwise, we suggest leaving a comment so our experts or someone in the community can help you.

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