3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on Feeling Anxious
Letting Go, the Devil You Know & Overcoming Social Anxiety
I. Letting Go
Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh on the importance of letting go:
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
II. The Devil You Know
Cognitive scientist Scott Barry Kaufman on the significance of negative emotion (neuroticism) as a Big Five personality trait:
Some people — those with high levels of neuroticism, need for closure, and obsessive-compulsive disorder — find uncertainty particularly aversive. Neuroticism is a personality trait characterized by a pattern of negative affect, anxiety, fear and rumination. When people high in neuroticism are exposed to uncertain feedback compared to negative feedback, the nervous system delivers an outsize emotion-laden response.
As psychologists Jacob Hirsh and Michael Inzlicht note, people scoring high in neuroticism ‘prefer the devil they know over the devil they do not know.’ The implications of neuroticism for mental health are tremendous, with some researchers going so far as to argue that neuroticism is the common core of all forms of psychopathology!
—Scott Barry Kaufman, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization
Scott is also the host of The Psychology Podcast.
III. Overcoming Social Anxiety
Canadian psychologist Jordan B. Peterson on how to overcome social anxiety:
Let’s say you’re socially anxious. What happens when you’re socially anxious? You go to a party, you’re heart’s beating. Why? The party is a monster. Why? Because it’s judging you and it’s putting you low down the dominance hierarchy. […]
What happens internally: ‘What are people thinking about me? Am I looking stupid? Am I looking foolish? Jeez, I’m awkward. I hate being here. Man, I’m sweating too much.?’ It’s all internalised, it’s all self-focused. The ‘eye’ isn’t working.
What do you tell people? ‘Don’t stop thinking about yourself, because you can’t.’ What you do with socially anxious people is to say: ‘Look at other people. Look at them!’ Why? Because when you look at them you can tell what they’re thinking. […]
If you’re ever speaking to a group of people. Never speak to the group of people. It doesn’t exist. You talk to individuals and then they reflect for you the entire group. Because they’re all entrained. So you look at one person, they broadcast you what everyone’s thinking. And you know how to talk to one person.
So it’s easy. As soon as you focus on the person, you push your attention outward and you start watching and then all your automatic mechanisms are kicking and you stop being awkward.
— Jordan B. Peterson, 2017 Maps of Meaning Lecture
🐘
Have a great week,
Chris
themindcollection.com