Guess you can either "have it" or cure it? As a sufferer myself, live with it and function normally just doesn't occur. What did you do on top of your routine, since you had no practitioner? I also doubt they help much so how did you?
Doesn't NLP work mostly influencing other people in select settings? Therapist to patient? If you do that and self-hypnosis yourself, what do you say to yourself?How does it materialise when social anxiety is physically triggered by inadequacy or inderiority, mostly from a young age and a totally physical response? I've always been critical..
Well the first thing I did was I made a decision to remain open that curing it was possible....Its very easy as a social phobic to become cynical of every solution offered because it doesn't take long to find out that many of them don't work.
I knew that as long as I didn't believe it were possible, I would never properly give things which may work a go, because I was always trying to dismiss the possibility, and so i would therefore miss out on the chance to find a cure
I then made a commitment to find that cure, so I became willing to try anything....
I then decided to pay 500GBP which is a lot of money on a hypnotist who I thought was a real oil snake kind of guy. He claimed to treat social anxiety solely His name was Adam Cumberland.
I didn't trust him, but he sat me down on a reclining chair, and told me to just remain open to his suggestions.
Before he started making suggestions... I was literally about to say in my head for the next hour "Lalala bullshit bullshit bullshit I'm not listening to this crap"
And just as he sat me down, he said... Jamie you could just say in your head yeah yeah yeah what a load of crap for an hour, but you would be doing yourself a real disservice.
So I opened up to his suggestions, which I thought were comical, but I had paid the money so what the hell
Anyway I left his office thinking, fuck that was a waste of money. I really hadn't much hope in it working at all.
However two days later it was Xmas and I was going to meet my Girlfriends parents at the time, who I was hugely intimidated by, they were quite rich and snobby and didn't like me because I was so shy and clearly not good enough for their daughter
However without any plan or expectation, I was at the table telling stories without thinking about what I was about to say (which felt so weird)... I was being funny, I would engaged I was able to listen easily, I was totally at ease, and the parents were really taken by me.. I was shocked how confident I was
I went to the toilet and my girlfriend met me in the hall way and said "It worked didn't it?" And I was like fuck it seems so.
Anyway for the next two weeks it work brilliantly
But then my sabotage mind came in and said "What if you start getting scared again of speaking to people" "Then you would have to pay another 500£ each time you got triggered.... then Id be back to square one
So obviously it came back....
I went back to him and It didn't work...
But I knew that there was hope because it was undeniable that it had actually worked for those two weeks, way way way beyond placebo... It properly worked
So I had hope that if I could figure out how to do he had done to me maybe I could do it for myself.
I started to get to work with my research,
I looked into the thinking's of a hypnotist called Emile Coue, and applied them to my own life
I found a book called Thrive which had tons of really good testimonials on it about curing SA
This book also talks about Emile Coue too
I saw this testimonial,
I thought feck it and bought the book.
I did the exercises from the first 5 chapters and they worked really well... But I really put in the work.... I was doing at least twenty minutes to an hour in a day
I also looked into a process called Self Hypnosis
and NLP,
Now all of the above modalities, are all based in the same line of thinking.... The more you don't want to think something, the more you will.... And they all give you the solutions to how to overcome that...
I started to apply these principles to my own life, and I started to have amazing results within a couple of weeks,
It took me however a year, to fully overcome all of my self limiting beliefs so much that I never get triggered by social situations anymore at all.
The feeling of freedom and relief that I experienced when I started to overcome all this was blissful.
All my energy that was taken up by Social Anxiety was now given back to me and was now turned into Enthusiasm for life. Life got sooooooo much better
To answer your questions
"Doesn't NLP work mostly influencing other people in select settings?" Yes and no, there are people who use it in this way, but that is not its main function, its main function is to develop your own confidence and overcome fears
Therapist to patient? If you do that and self-hypnosis yourself, what do you say to yourself? I would use suggestive talk to myself just as a hypnotist would, its too complex to go into full detail here I'm afraid.
"How does it materialise when social anxiety is physically triggered by inadequacy or inferiority, mostly from a young age and a totally physical response? I've always been critical..""
So to answer this question, you are saying that its a physical response, to inadequacy, or inferiority.... Well both inadequacy and inferiority are both the result of our thinking and beliefs that we have had in response to certain triggers. Its with our thinking that we need to work with and that's what all the modalities which I have mentioned do they work on your thinking, so actually it would be perfectly applicable to your situation
Hope that helps
How would you recommend learning Self Hypnosis, and that NLP thing?
Have a look at the reply to the user above it might help.... Ask me if you need more help
Oh btw if you are looking for a good tool to have which is not gonna 100 per cent cure your SA but will definitely help
Check out and listen to Andrew Johnsons Social Anxiety App.. I found it helpful and it only cost a few quid, its not expensive...
But I promise you from the bottom of my heart that Social Anxiety is easy to overcome with the right tools.
How would you recommend learning Self Hypnosis, and that NLP thing?
First look into a guy called Emile Coue, he is the founder of hypnosis, the Placebo effect etc.
Then if you are happy to part with the money buy a book called Thrive Programme,
Also maybe listen to an Audio book on NLP by richard Bandler
But honestly dont give up, keep going put in the work and you can do it I promise.
