Overcoming Social Anxiety Through Stoicism

In this day and age, social anxiety has become a common occurrence in our lives, and at its worst, may even have an adverse effect on our mental health. So how do we overcome it and lead a more confident and fulfilling life? Stoicism, an ancient Greek philosophy, may just have the answer. As we will see, by practicing four important methods of Stoic philosophy, we can effectively overcome social anxiety and become more optimistic and self-confident.

[@ranc1977]

Social anxiety is response to narcissistic abuse - whereas narcissistic abuse has adverse effect on our mental health. NOT social anxiety.
Social anxiety is reaction to abuse. IT would be the same as if you say that loss of blood is not good for life - whereas the problem is the person holding a knife and cutting us. Blood is product of knife violence and abnormal person trying to stab us - blood itself is not abnormal.
13 seconds into the video and it is already filled with misleading information about social anxiety.
0:15 "How do we overcome it and lead a more confident and fulfilling life"
By attacking our natural responses to stress - we will create mental illness, we will create toxic shame, destroy our confidence and live poor life afraid of being different and unique.
0:34 "overcome social anxiety and become more optimistic"
Without social anxiety we will become narcissists and sociopaths - because without social anxiety we won't care what other people think to the point where we disregard other people's safety.
I am not sure what social anxiety has with optimism. If we are poor, if we are in toxic ambient - it is dangerous to suppress reality and pretend that we are fine and that problem do not exist.
1:00 "accept need to social interaction is normal"
You mix up schizoid disorder with social anxiety.
Avoidants (extreme social anxiety) desire social interaction but are afraid of it due to past trauma
1:54 "gradually increase social actitivities"
Social anxiety trauma can be Highly functional - which means activities - and trauma is still there.
2:36 "learning to say no when necessary"
So what happens when we are attacked for saying no. What then? You do not go in that problem. You simply highlight easy surface level information as general tool which does not work in real world.
3:42 "people are always criticizing me"
What happens if we do live in shame culture country and this statement is true. What then?
4:26 "Successful moment"
This does not help at all.
5:00 "Misspeaking doesn't always lead to mockery"
What if it does?
5:33 "Practice virtues"
Social anxiety stems from having high moral and ethical standards - and then clashing with toxic people who do not.
6:56 "displaying courage is to say no"
You are mixing up courage with anxiety issues. Even though it appears as lack of courage - anxiety is stimulation overload and it has nothing to do with manliness. if we equate these two - it will lead to toxic shame and mental illness and total lack of confidence.
Secondly, saying no leads to physical violence and loss of job. Without finances , we will become homeless. So I don't think you are connected to reality here and the real world.
7:15 "Wisdom understanding other points and know when to speak"
This works in healthy sane ambient. It does not work with toxic ambient nor toxic people around us, pathological liars and manipulators.
8:00 "Focus on what we can control helps with social anxiety"
Controlling anxiety leads to more of anxiety.
8:44 "You can choose to be comfortable"
This is called dissociation, and it leads to mental illness. When we cover up uncomfortable emotions is not stoicism , it is cowardice. It leads to mental illness because we miss the lessons to learn.
9:50 "do not Seek approval from others"
What happens when other person is pathological liar and provide us with false information?
What happens when we need to learn from our mistakes - and the other person is misleading us by providing false information about the same mistake?

[@LifesCipher]

Your point is important, thanks for the feedback. We all need to take a more holistic view. However, good social skills take time and practice to develop, so there is no need to be too hard on yourself and allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them.
Stoics believe that we can only control our own thoughts and behaviours, not the perceptions or reactions of others. By focusing on what we can control, we can cope with social anxiety more effectively.

[@ranc1977]

​@@LifesCipher This is the central problem.
With social anxiety, which is trauma rooted in ACE childhood neglect and constant chronic criticism - this desire to control turns into toxic shame and inner criticism which ends up as self sabotage in life. Constant seeking what is dangerous and what must be fixed - Maltz talked about this in his book Psychothronic - about people who sought endless plastic surgeries, and end up as monsters in the end due to unnecessary fixing of themselves.
Plus
having social anxiety means having high and superior social skills which 90 percent of people do not have at all: empathy and ability to put oneself in other place (anti- egocentrism) and knowing what other people need - as oppose being selfish and pursuing own selfish desires and harming people in this pursuit.

[@LifesCipher]

Thank you, your opinion is important. However, everyone is not exactly the same and there are various reasons for social anxiety, some innate and some acquired, so it's still important to personalise each person's situation. Although there is no solution that can solve everyone's problem, some effective methods can still bring help or inspiration to some people.

[@ranc1977]

​@@LifesCipher I agree that not all people are the same.
However in case of social anxiety - this is specific kind of affliction that can only occur in the childhood, when a child is exposed to mentally ill undiagnosed and untreated parent, like Aspergers (someone who criticize all the time chronically, impose routines and is highly sensitive to sounds sights and scents and tastes and then harass people family members around them due to intolerance to senses).
Regarding methods - in case of misdiagnosis - person can develop new layers of anxiety and mental health issues, in attempt to fix something that is not broken at all.
If we are not serial killers, if we do not have hidden agenda to cause harm to other people - there is absolutely nothing wrong inside us that requires such drama, hysteria and waste of energy that you mention in your video. You spread the message as if we are heavily damaged, severely abnormal people who require 24/7 hypervigilant monitoring and that our social skills are the same as of Neanderthals'.

[@LifesCipher]

Thank you for your reply, I'm very sorry that the content of this video has caused you distress, but I think there is a misunderstanding.
First of all, the social anxiety disorder you mentioned is a specific disorder that only occurs in childhood. And the phenomenon of social anxiety mentioned in the video refers to the general phenomenon that is common in our life, where people face social activities with different degrees of obstacles. So, the subject of our discussion may not be the same.
Secondly, there is no disrespect in the video for people with social anxiety, but simply a desire to help them overcome some common disturbances through the philosophical concepts of Stoicism, and to help them be able to participate in everyday social activities with more optimism and confidence.
I've put the full transcript of this video on my blog, and you can take a good look at the transcript if you'd like, the link is: htao77.blogspot.com/2024/04/overcoming-social-anxiety-through.html
I hope this reply clears up any misunderstandings and I sincerely wish you happiness!