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How to Beat Social Anxiety:
Breaking Free from the Rules
Social Anxiety Therapy: Quick Links
The easiest way to teach you how to beat social anxiety is to show you how I might work with it in my private practice.
If you don't know me, I'm Oliver, and I'm an anxiety therapist in Los Angeles and I've been helping people break the rules of anxiety for nearly a decade.
Social anxiety isn't just shyness on steroids—it's a complex beast that whispers lies about your worth, convincing you that judgment, shame and humiliation lurks around every conversation corner. It's shocking to think that 80% of people who struggle with this don't get help.
If you've ever felt your heart racing before introducing yourself, gone blank during a presentation, or spent hours overthinking a brief interaction, you might have an idea of what social anxiety is like.
But to really know, you can take the free social anxiety quiz I created, the link is right here. If you sign up with your email, you'll get a free email course on anxiety and how I work with people in anxiety.
The Hidden Rules of A Social Anxiety Disorder
I've been a therapist for close to a decade, and I've discovered that social anxiety operates by a strict rulebook—one you never consciously agreed to follow but flare up in any potential social situation.
What Is Anxiety?
Anxiety is our body's natural response to perceived threats or stress, activating our "fight-or-flight" system even when no immediate danger exists. It's job was originally to scan the horizon for potential threats and alert us to potential dangers.
Fast-forward a few millenia and that old wiring is still operating in our 21st Century everyday life. Except the threats aren't hungry saber tooth tigers, it's rent, or friends, or a persistent fear that might be somewhat or totally irrational. Social anxiety's been around for a while, but is only just getting acknowledgment.
Either way anxiety's goals today are very similar - to keep you small, safe and separate.
Let me introduce you to some of these invisible laws that are most likely governing your social life:
The Comparison Contract
This is social anxiety's favorite weapon. It whispers:
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"Everyone else has social skills that work, you don't."
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"No one else struggles in social situations like this"
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"If you were more charismatic/interesting/funny, you'd be where they are."
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"Look at Jenny, her heart rate isn't freaking out like yours"
Every time you walk into a room and see people chatting comfortably, or see people on social media having fun, The Comparison Contract activates.
This law describes the tendency to constantly compare oneself to others, particularly through the lens of social media, leading to feelings of inadequacy.
Anxiety weaponizes comparison, needing only to show someone perceived as "winning" to make you feel like you're failing.
This rule is fantastic for anxiety, because it works at keeping you separate and as a result safe- 2 our of 3 of anxiety's objectives!
The Self-Attack Statute
This rule enforces the belief that if something goes wrong or someone is upset, it must be your own fault. It leads to automatic self-blame, excessive apologizing, and rumination over perceived mistakes.
Int a twisted way, this self-blame can feel like a way to gain control, assuming that if you caused the problem, perhaps you can fix it, because the alternative - not knowing who did it is far more threatening.
The mental conversation after a social event often sounds like:
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"Did I talk too much?"
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"Was that joke inappropriate?"
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"They didn't laugh at my story—they must think I'm boring."
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"I should have said something different when they mentioned their promotion."
For social anxiety specifically, the fear often centers on people's judgments and is always highly critical. This relentless barrage of reprimands and attacks aimed at oneself, tapps into feelings of embarrassment and, more likely, shame.
So anxiety keeps you small and sperate.
The Small Is Safe Directive
This rule promotes anxiety's goal of keeping you safe and small, preferably by staying within one's comfort zone,
It's a sedcutive whisper that promises safety and security through familiarity and avoidance of the unpredictable.
However, adhering to this leads to a shrinking world, as anxiety negotiates away pieces of life (social events, travel, opportunities).
But it keeps you anxious because the smaller the "safe zone" becomes, the more terrifying the remaining territory seems.
This rule of anxiety is a lullaby, singing softly:
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"There's no place like home."
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"Maybe skip that party—what if you don't know anyone?"
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"Don't speak up in that meeting—what if your idea is rejected?"
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"Cancel that date—too unpredictable."
Before you know it, your world has shrunk to the size of your apartment, with Netflix as your most consistent companion.
The Social Anxiety Disorder Symptoms: Understanding the Signs
Social anxiety disorder is far more than everyday nervousness—it's a serious mental health condition characterized by an intense fear of social settings and persistent worry about being judged by others. People experiencing social anxiety symptoms often describe a crippling fear of rejection that manifests both mentally and physically.
The physical symptoms typically include a rapid heartbeat or racing heart, shortness of breath, excessive sweating, muscle tension, and sometimes even full-blown anxiety attacks.
These reactions can occur before, during, or even after a social event, making everyday activities like making phone calls, attending networking events, or participating in conversations extraordinarily challenging. Many individuals also report difficulty maintaining eye contact during interactions, which further reinforces negative social experiences.
The psychological impact of social anxiety disorder extends far beyond momentary discomfort, often severely disrupting a person's daily life and social relationships. Avoidance behaviors become common as the individual begins systematically avoiding anxiety-inducing situations, which can lead to increased isolation and missed opportunities. Internally, people with this type of anxiety disorder experience overwhelming negative thought patterns and cognitive distortions—constantly assuming others are evaluating them negatively.
This fear of judgment becomes so powerful that it can trigger alarm bells in the body's nervous system when faced with even minor social challenges. What separates social anxiety disorder from ordinary shyness is both the intensity and persistence of these symptoms, along with their significant impact on one's quality of life.
If these symptoms sound familiar, consulting with a mental health professional is an important step toward finding relief through behavioral therapy, medication, or a combination of treatment approaches.
Common Types Of Social Anxiety Triggers
Public Speaking Anxiety
Public speaking often tops the fear charts, even for people without general social anxiety.
Dating Anxiety
Dating with social anxiety is particularly challenging because it combines social fear with romantic vulnerability.
Workplace Social Anxiety
Work presents unique social anxiety challenges because avoidance impacts your career.
Why Traditional Coping Skills Often Fail with Anxiety Disorders
When treating anxiety disorders, therapists often teach various coping skills to help clients manage their symptoms. However, these well-intentioned strategies can actually reinforce anxiety patterns and promote safety behaviors rather than eliminating the anxiety engine underneath.
Here are four compelling reasons why traditional coping skills often fail to produce lasting change:
1. They Function as Dependency-Creating Crutches
Traditional coping skills like relaxation techniques and breathing exercises can become "crutches" that clients depend on. While crutches can be useful during healing, if you keep using them, you'll never develop the strength to walk without them.
When clients rely on breathing skills or other calming techniques, they develop a dangerous dependency. They'll enter anxiety-provoking situations thinking, "At least I've got my calming breath to cool me out." But what happens when they eventually encounter a situation where that calming breath doesn't work? As Wilson bluntly puts it, "they're screwed."
2. They Allow Clients to Avoid Fully Experiencing Anxiety
The root problem with coping skills is that they support experiential avoidance. When clients use coping techniques, they're fundamentally trying to escape or reduce discomfort rather than learning to tolerate it.
Effective treatment requires clients to "take the hit" - to allow emotional and physical arousal to come forward without resistance. Coping skills can prevent this essential exposure by giving clients ways to diminish their anxiety before they've fully experienced it.
3. They Suppress Emotional Processing
One of the most problematic aspects of traditional coping skills is that "suppression stops emotional processing." When clients use techniques to suppress their anxiety, they block access to the underlying fear structures that need modification.
Instead of processing emotions, suppression leads clients to rely on abstract conceptualizations of both their situation and their skills. They miss vital information and jump to conclusions about threats rather than taking in all available data. This prevents the natural learning process that would otherwise help them overcome their anxiety.
4. They Reinforce the Idea That Anxiety Is Dangerous
When clients use coping skills and feel relief, it actually strengthens the anxiety cycle. They think, "Good thing I had my crutch. It helped. Could have been dangerous if I didn't have it." This builds an association between the feared situation and danger, making the fear response stronger over time.
The fundamental problem is that traditional approaches position anxiety as something that must be eliminated or controlled. This paradoxically gives anxiety more power. As Wilson explains, the real goal should be to help clients develop a different relationship with anxiety - one where they're willing to experience uncertainty and discomfort rather than constantly trying to escape it.
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Therapy For Social Anxiety
At Oliver Drakeford Therapy, we work with a lot of people with feelings of anxiety and offer both person to person therapy and group therapy for anxiety. Group therapy can be a really efficient way to deal with mental disorders and anxiety and can be faster and more impactful than months of treatment in traditional therapy.
Rather than focusing on the typical breathing exercises and guided meditations that characterize many anxiety groups, our framework emphasizes a fundamental shift in how people relate to their anxiety.
Here are the core approaches that form the foundation of this treatment philosophy:
1. Developing Metacognitive Awareness
We believe that the first step to helping clients step outside their anxiety experience to observe it with curiosity rather than fear.
By learning to track anxiety's predictable patterns and repetitive loops, clients can move from being passive experiencers of anxiety to active observers who can eventually direct their response. This perspective shift alone creates psychological distance that diminishes anxiety's power.
2. Changing the Relationship with Uncertainty
.At its core, anxiety treatment needs to address the fundamental issue: intolerance of uncertainty. Rather than teaching clients to eliminate discomfort (which paradoxically reinforces anxiety), effective treatment helps them develop a new relationship with uncertainty—one where they can function effectively even without complete certainty or comfort.
Our approach recognizes that anxiety isn't about the specific fear content but about the underlying process of how we handle not knowing.
3. Engagement Rather Than Avoidance
Traditional anxiety management often inadvertently reinforces avoidance. In contrast, this approach encourages strategic engagement—treating anxiety like a game with rules that can be understood, challenged, and ultimately rewritten.
Instead of teaching clients to retreat from anxiety-provoking situations, it equips them with strategies to engage differently, often doing the exact opposite of what anxiety expects. This disrupts the traditional anxiety cycle and creates opportunities for new learning.
4. Experimentation Over Exposure
When clients use coping skills and feel relief, it actually strengthens the anxiety cycle. They think, "Good thing I had my crutch. It helped. Could have been dangerous if I didn't have it." This builds an association between the feared situation and danger, making the fear response stronger over time.
The fundamental problem is that traditional approaches position anxiety as something that must be eliminated or controlled. This paradoxically gives anxiety more power. As Wilson explains, the real goal should be to help clients develop a different relationship with anxiety - one where they're willing to experience uncertainty and discomfort rather than constantly trying to escape it.
LEARN MORE ABOUT ANXIETY TREATMENT IN LOS ANGELES
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