Social Anxiety trigger: People thinking your anxious

Note: This solution is for people seeing you anxious or someone thinking you might be anxious in the future.

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

In some cases, you may knowingly or unkowingly 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. Our article “Getting what you want” can help you think through 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 may find that those labels on their own can’t or don’t do anything. That’s not to say they aren’t labels you’d like to avoid but it can help to determine if those labels have any impact on your day-to-day life or goals.

If those labels are going to prevent you from getting what you want, then we suggest you ensure 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 that truly matter to you. We have resources to help you eliminate those triggers. You may also want to reflect on whether the environment or people you’re dealing with to get what you want is the right fit for you. 

You may for example be able to pursue what you want in a different environment or with a different group of people that will focus more on the value you’re 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 with the possibility of others seeing or thinking (correctly or incorrectly) you’re anxious now. If you don’t ok this to yourself, 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 any anxiety triggers that are or would cause you to be anxious in someone’s presence. 

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’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 that reality to happen then 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 to you 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)

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