2 Key techniques for managing social anxiety or shyness…
when you first meet a new acquaintance that not only put you at ease, they also put your new friend at ease and make both of you so comfortable that you can easily make friends and feel great in any social setting!
One of my Silver members from Greece asked a really good question this morning about overcoming shyness and social anxiety when meeting new people. I thought I’d share my answer not just with him but with all of you.
He asked:
I got the silver program before some days. I used the technique of the time-line with the fifteen minutes and it helped me a lot before going out with people who I am not very close. But when I talk with these people,at firstI still feel anxious. I would like to ask for your opinion. What do you think that I should do at the very same time that I talk with these people? Thank you very much for your time
Here’s my answer:
- Blink. Pay attention to when they blink. When they blink. Match it. You blink. You don’t have to do it every time. But definitely use it a few times.
- Breathe. When someone else is talking, they are breathing out (they have to be breathing out because that’s how we make the sounds right?) So when they are talking just breathe out. You can time the circular breathing to it or just simply breathe out. Please Note: I teach the circular breathing technique in the Silver Level Course Materials : 17 Secrets To Crush Anxiety
- You can even do them from across the room.
- They connect you unconsciously to the person you are talking to.
- They focus you away from yourself and your fears and onto the person you are with.
- This feels really good. both for you and for the person you are talking to.
Please note:
Because of the huge amount of Spam I’ve been getting, I’ve had to close the comments feature of this blog.
If you have questions or comments you can either
- Call me at 888+598+7709,
- E-mail me at mark [at] MarkShepard.com
Or you can fill out the form below and I’ll contact you. Thanks! – Mark
I recently got a comment from a Bronze Member of ClearFear.com that set me off. I should probably just ignore it and let it go. It doesn’t bother me personally, but I think something has to be said.
I can’t tell you how many requests I’ve gotten over the years from people asking the same thing. I HAVE to respond to this. It will probably offend some people. If it offends you, I hope it will at least cause you to do some serious thinking.
Here’s the comment:
hi mark,
i joined the bronze membership level and i saw your video. i want to learn more about crushing anxiety but i don’t have the means to pay for the manual and audios. i was hoping you can let me download it for charity since i know you are doing this not just for business but to help sufferers like me kick out this anxiety.
many thanks and God bless you.
I really, really appreciate the fact that for many anxiety sufferers their fear, GAD, Social anxiety, panic attacks etc. have disrupted their lives so much that they have lost their jobs and are broke.
That’s one reason I literally give away one of my absolute best Anxiety self help secrets.
And even though I’m not out to rip anybody off, this is a business. I am a professional NLP Master Practitioner and Hypnotherapist. I do this for a living.
One of the laws of attraction is to offer more value paid for. I do that. But there is a limit. I can’t and won’t give any more away than I already have for several reasons:
- It’s not Fair to my other clients. If I give my manuals and audios away free to anyone who just asks for it, what about the people who have forked over their hard earned cash in good faith. It would be unfair to them. BTW the best clients I’ve had over the years, NEVER questioned my fee. They knew I could help them and they were willing to invest in their results.
. - It’s not fair to me. I’ve literally invested thousand of dollars and thousands of hours into developing my anxiety coaching programs, anxiety workshops and seminars as well as home study products and this website.
. - You get what you pay for. Please understand that there is definitely a connection between what you invest and what you get out of any self help program. Whenever I have tried to help people in the past by giving them my work, it has been frustrating and it has become clear that I do no one a favor by giving everything away.
. - I have already given away one of my best resources. If you need more help. It costs money. If you get a taste of ice cream to check out the flavor you don’t expect to get the whole cone for free.
. - It’s a test of your commitment. Just like the Wizard of Oz wouldn’t help Dorothy and her friends until they had delivered the broomstick of the wicked witch, the student or the client MUST give an equivalent of invested energy in order to “own” the outcome. I hope that is something you can understand. Even after my one on one clients pay my fee, they are required to complete tasks that are designed to support their change. If they don’t do their tasks, I won’t work with them anymore.
I want to help as many people as I can. And, I live in the real world. I have bills to pay. I have to buy food and pay rent. You would never go to a gas station and say, Please sir I want to go somewhere but I have no money for gas. Would you please give me a tank of gas for free? Good luck trying it.
Why is it that so many anxiety sufferers want help without having to pay for it? Is there some secret feeling of self importance in your life? That you are so special because of your pain that a complete stranger should help you for free?
I can only work with people who understand this. If that makes me a “bad” person in the eyes of some, so be it.
Even in tribal times, if you were sick and needed the help of the medicine man or tribal healer, you would still have to pay. You or your family might have to provide a share of your crops or meat from your hunting. Or you might have to go on a journey to bring back the hide of the white buffalo or whatever.
There has to be an exchange of energy. It’s a basic law of the universe.
I sincerely wish you (and so many others like you who have written to me asking the same thing) all the best.
When you stop trying to get help for free and start being willing to do whatever it takes to get the help you need, you will be 75-90% of the way to crushing anxiety in your life and taking back your power.
Mark
p.s. Ready to invest in yourself and start taking actual action steps to crush anxiety?
Explore these options:
- 17 Secrets To Crush Anxiety & Get Your Life Back!
- Clear The Fear Fast Home Study System
- Clear The Fear Boot Camp (aka “Retreat” aka “Learning Vacation”)
- One On One Coaching With Mark Shepard
Copyright by Mark Shepard 2010 All Rights Reserved
Please note:
Because of the huge amount of Spam I’ve been getting, I’ve had to close the comments feature of this blog.
If you have questions or comments you can either
- Call me at 888+598+7709,
- E-mail me at mark [at] MarkShepard.com
Or you can fill out the form below and I’ll contact you. Thanks! – Mark
Got an important question from a bronze member about anxiety: “What do you do when there’s no specific anxiety event and it just hits seemingly out of the blue?” Angie brings up a number of important issues in her comment which I did my best to answer thoroughly. This may be one of the most key video articles I’ve ever made.
Check it out:
.
Please note:
Because of the huge amount of Spam I’ve been getting, I’ve had to close the comments feature of this blog.
If you have questions you can either
- Call me at 888-598-7709,
- E-mail me at mark [at] MarkShepard.com
Or you can fill out the form below and I’ll contact you. Thanks! – Mark
Watch this video article in response to an awesome question from member, Ken Browne who asked me for some specific help for anxiety about death…
Here’s the audio track without the video in case you want to down load it and listen to it in your mp3 player.
I welcome your comments! Even the honest ones and the tough ones. Leave a comment below.
Ready to take action?
Explore these options:
- 17 Secrets To Crush Anxiety & Get Your Life Back!
- Clear The Fear Fast Home Study System
- Clear The Fear Boot Camp (aka “Retreat” aka “Learning Vacation”)
- One On One Coaching With Mark Shepard
Copyright by Mark Shepard 2010 All Rights Reserved
Please note:
Because of the huge amount of Spam I’ve been getting, I’ve had to close the comments feature of this blog.
If you have questions you can either
- Call me at 888+598+7709
- E-mail me at mark [at] MarkShepard.com
Or you can fill out the form below and I’ll contact you. Thanks! – Mark
I had an honest reaction from one of my clients in response to my article/video “Terror On A (not very big) Hill”
He said:
I’m going to be honest the ski video is cool, on one hand it shows your human and you deal with anxiety like other sufferers but to me and other possible clients it makes me feel like I’m not dealing with someone who has mastered controlling his anxiety but someone who’s still on his journey- kind of like getting treated from a doctor still in school-would rather the experienced doc.
I want to respond to this because I think it’s a fair question and I truly appreciate the honesty.
First of all, I think I’m a better anxiety coach because I have been where you are and I have felt the terror of anxiety. I can also help smokers stop smoking (even though I’ve never smoked) and overweight people lose weight (even though I’ve never been overweight) because NLP and hypnosis and Time Line Therapy® work.
But, I’m a much better anxiety and phobia coach than I am a stop smoking or weight loss coach. I know the beast of anxiety from the inside out. And I’ve used the same tools I teach to help myself. And I continue to use the tools to help myself through life’s little challenges.
Secondly, every day I am engaged in doing the things that I used to stop myself from doing.
- I am making music as well as performing it
- I am recording and putting my songs out on the internet
- I am creating and teaching courses on NLP, Hypnosis & Time Line
- I am learning everything I need to learn about business and marketing (stuff that used to intimidate me) in order to share my work with larger groups of people
- I speak to strangers on the street.
- I strike up conversations with beautiful women at parties and pretty much anywhere I happen to find myself.
- I pick up the phone and introduce myself to potential business contacts.
- Put me in front of any audience, any where, any size, any age and I can perform, I can give an impromptu talk with literally no anxiety.
- I can hold a moth or a beetle in my hand.
- I could sell snow to Eskimos at this point and I used to totally freak out about selling anything.
on and on and on…
Just because I felt the old terror when I was pushing through a new situation does not make me like the “doc who is still in school”. It just makes me a lot like you but with more training and more experience in dealing with a highly sensitive neurology.
And even more importantly than anything else:
I do not “fix” anyone. I do not “cure” anyone. The NLP tools don’t cure or fix anyone. We “cure” ourselves using the tools.
I am a coach. I teach you how to run your own mind so that your old patterns of thinking stop keeping you from living the life you want to live.
So even if I wasn’t walking my talk, you could learn something from me and still apply it to your own life.
Michael Jordan had a coach. Every great athlete does. I would be willing to bet that Jordan’s coach could not get out there in the middle of a game and shoot the baskets for Michael. You know? Ultimately it came down to Michael using his tools. Sometimes he even missed a shot. Sometimes he had an off day. Human.
Ultimately you want to work with a practitioner who knows his stuff. But NLP doesn’t make your life perfect. It simply gives you resources so you can deal with life’s challenges.
I’m a certified trainer in every one of the techniques I use (except EFT) which means I teach other practitioners and master practitioners how to do this work. Just because I’m a teacher of this stuff doesn’t mean I don’t have problems or challenges or areas of my life that I’m still working on.
We are never done people! Ever. And IMHO that’s really a good thing.
Anyone who says we get to a place where everything is perfect is a con artist. I teach this stuff because I wanted to learn it so badly that I knew I would learn it better if I taught it. I was right. I want you to teach it to others so you will get the benefit of mastery as well.
But hey! Guess what? I’m STILL learning. Every single day.
I have been in practice since 2003 with hundreds of clients and a lot of practical, hands-on experience. And let me tell you it has not always been a breeze! Sometimes I had to use my anxiety tools just to be able to work with clients. Because I could get sucked into their negative patterns pretty easily if I wasn’t careful. I’ve also had to use my tools to set aside my own life “stuff” (like going through a divorce) in order to be clear and present for my clients or to teach a group of students.
And yes, I use these techniques every single day to create the life I have always wanted. Every single day.
Most days (unlike before I started this journey 15 years ago) I am relaxed and confident, comfortable in any situation you could throw at me. Sometimes “stuff” happens and it takes me a while to get back to center after some unwelcome surprise or event. Sometimes I’m challenging myself to push through the comfort zone. Then I’m using every tool in my book just like you.
If you want to work with a practitioner who doesn’t admit to being human then good luck finding one. Personally when I choose a coach to work with I want someone who is ahead of where I am but who also uses the skills I’m learning from him or her. I prefer it if they had to learn the hard way. But I also want them to be human.
For skiing and mountain biking advice I turn to Mike at Sport Tech in Oneonta, he’s a total advanced expert skier (as well as biker). And even he admitted that controlling cross country skis on a hill (with trees at the bottom) can scare the pants off him. “Sometimes” he said you just have to sit down and roll to the side to stop.”
My sweet anxiety suffering friends,
I truly and honestly hope you take charge of your change. You do not have to keep suffering. Sometimes the process is fast and fun. Other times it requires perseverance and damn hard work. Sometimes you can go it alone and sometimes you need some support and guidance.
Keep at it. I’m right here with you and ultimately it’s the best work to be doing!
And finally, if you watch the video in the previous article, “Terror On A (not even a very big) Hill” please make sure you notice the most important thing. Even though I experienced anxiety about going down the hill. I still went back and used my tools to move through the fear. I focused on learning. I did the EFT tapping. I visualized successfully arriving safely at the bottom of the hill. I used a self hypnotic command “RELAX” which I spoke out loud. I used my circular breathing. And I was able to go down the hill three times. That is what we mean by walking our talk.
What is it that you are stopping yourself from doing that you want to do? What kind of life do you want to create? What is it costing you to hold yourself back? What would it be like to just forget the fear, the phobias, the anxiety, the worry, the shyness, the panic, the terror, the self sabotage and be empowered and confident?
What would it be like to feel safe and comfortable in your own life? If you can’t imagine that, at least imagine what it would be like to make a small step in the right direction…and then another…and then another…Until one day you look back and see how it all worked out better than you could possibly imagine…
I welcome your comments! Even the honest ones and the tough ones. Leave a comment below.
Got questions? e-mail me at mark [at] markshepard.com or call me at 888-598-7709
Ready to take action?
Explore these options:
- 17 Secrets To Crush Anxiety & Get Your Life Back!
- Clear The Fear Fast Home Study System
- Clear The Fear Boot Camp (aka “Retreat” aka “Learning Vacation”)
- One On One Coaching With Mark Shepard
Please note:
Because of the huge amount of Spam I’ve been getting, I’ve had to close the comments feature of this blog.
If you have questions you can either
- Call me at 888-598-7709,
- E-mail me at mark [at] MarkShepard.com
Or you can fill out the form below and I’ll contact you. Thanks! – Mark
One distinction I have to make over and over again. Anxiety is thinking about what you do not want to have happen. That is hardwired into our systems. No breakthrough session will ever take away the choice we have to imagine the worst case scenario. Unlike Phobias which are one time learning events, clearing anxiety is about managing our thoughts and states on a moment to moment basis.
Here I am the “courage coach” sharing a moment of Terror on a not even very big hill the other day when I was cross country skiing. For those who don’t know, XC skis are not as easy to control or steer down a hill as down hill skis are. I’m still new at this and learning how to control my speed going down hill has been challenging for me.
check it out:
Need more help?
Explore these options:
- 17 Secrets To Crush Anxiety & Get Your Life Back!
- Clear The Fear Fast Home Study System
- Clear The Fear Boot Camp (aka “Retreat” aka “Learning Vacation”)
- One On One Coaching With Mark Shepard
Please note:
Because of the huge amount of Spam I’ve been getting, I’ve had to close the comments feature of this blog.
If you have questions you can either
- Call me at 888-598-7709,
- E-mail me at mark [at] MarkShepard.com
Or you can fill out the form below and I’ll contact you. Thanks! – Mark
You probably already know this intellectually. In case this is new for you. Here’s the deal. Your unconscious mind does not know the difference between what is real and what is imagined. So if you focus on bad things happening, your body is going to react as if it is really happening.
A lot of the folks I work with seem to know this consciously but on an unconscious level they are still focusing on what they don’t want. Instead. FOCUS ON WHAT YOU WANT. That’s it. Over and over again when you catch yourself focusing on what you do not want, gently turn your attention to what you want.
So here’s a way to get it in where it will hopefully stick. It’s a song about focus. I put together a little slide show to go with the music so that hopefully it will help to give you a visual as well as an auditory “anchor”.
Please leave a comment below and come back to play this song frequently.
Need more help?
check out:
- 17 Secrets To Crush Anxiety & Get Your Life Back!
- Clear The Fear Fast Home Study System
- Clear The Fear Boot Camp (aka “Retreat” aka “Learning Vacation”)
- One On One Coaching With Mark Shepard
Please note:
Because of the huge amount of Spam I’ve been getting, I’ve had to close the comments feature of this blog.
If you have questions you can either
- Call me at 888-598-7709,
- E-mail me at mark [at] MarkShepard.com
Or you can fill out the form below and I’ll contact you. Thanks! – Mark
When nothing seems to work…
When all the best tools and techniques seem to be doing nothing to stop your relentless anxiety…
When all the best plans seem to have failed to give you what you thought and hoped and prayed they would give you. Relief from the pain. Money in the bank. Love. Fitness. Success. Peace. Health. Calm. Joy.
There are still choices.
1. Give up.
Blame the course, the teacher, the coach, the practitioner. Blame God. Blame your parents. Blame your genetics. Blame yourself. Blame. Blame. Blame. It’s fun! All the cool kids are doing it.
2. Give in.
The course was good, the teacher well meaning. The coach was the best. He or she has helped so many people. But it just didn’t work for you.
3. Get to work.
Obsessively and compulsively practice. Flood your monkey mind with love. And keep pushing it. Keep the pressure on. Keep doing the work step after step after step. On every epic journey there are moments when the best are tempted to give up, to give in. then there is that moment of choice where they take a deep breathe and get to work.
Roll up the sleeves. Persist. Persevere. Pretend it’s supposed to be this way. There’s a purpose. Enjoy the process.
Shackleton knew he would not reach the south pole. He gave up that goal. He gave in to the idea that the pole was not meant to have his name on it.
Then he got to work keeping his men alive and getting them back home.
4. Then there is another way altogether. Just Stop. Stop and get really quiet.
This is your life. You are creating it every moment with your thoughts and your focus.
Stop the blame. Stop the self pity. Stop stopping your self with mental traps and double binds.
What if you saw the process of freaking yourself out as an incredible pattern designed to protect you? It’s quite the accomplishment isn’t it? It’s a complex program of behavior woven over the years.
How does it serve you? How is it perfect? What does it get you? Who would you be without it?
Start to focus on what you want. Focus on it with the same passion and fierceness with which you were clinging to your faults, your weaknesses, your failures.
Get back on the bike and ride. Get back into your life and live it.
No matter what I say. No matter what techniques I teach you ultimately it comes down to you. I can’t change for you.
Change or don’t change. The world outside goes on doing whatever it does whether you change or not. That world just is. It’s not about you at all.
There’s another world. The world inside. That world is all you. Inside you is where all your reactions are created. All your interpretations. All of your filters and definitions are in you.
The outside world you can not change. The inside world you can change because you create it.
As a wise man once pointed out to me, “Whether you make yourself miserable or make your life magical, the amount of effort is the same.”
Do you need help?
Check out the Anxiety Crushing tools and resources available to you in the Members Center
Clear the Fear Home Study System
Here’s a song I wrote that I think you just might be able to relate to. Play it over and over again. Let it get stuck in your head. It’s got some advanced language patterns embedded in the lyrics that can really help “re-program” your mind.
Recently got a note from Lisa who saw my “How To Stop Anxiety Without Harmful Drugs of Endless Therapy” Video Series on YouTube.
She asked a really good question:
Hi there! my name is Lisa and i have just came across your videos about anxiety. Now I can see this working for those random times when anxiety pops up, but how do you deal with anxiety that doesn’t seem to go away ever? i have been suffering with anxiety on and off for years and for months at a time i can suffer with anxious thought 24/7 its frustrating and rather annoying. i do understand that it is my thought process but i cannot seem to hold on to that anxious free feeling for more then a half hour. its almost as if i am anxious about being anxious as weird as that sounds. anxiety is very very draining mentally and physically. and if you have any tips to deal with this it would be much appreciated. thanks for your time.
Dear Lisa (and other acute anxiety sufferers who seem to experience anxiety 24/7),
Usually I teach the anxiety technique to my 1 on 1 clients after we’ve already done a significant amount of work with clearing the entire chain of negative emotions from the past.
Here’s what happens. When we first feel an emotion whether it’s anger or sadness or fear, your unconscious mind identifies it and the next time it feels that same emotion it links the two in a chain that we call a “Gestalt”.
Over the years, every time you’ve felt fear that emotion gets neurologically linked up like a string of Christmas lights or a string of pearls.
Some events may be more significant and others less so, but they all get organized into the “fear” gestalt.
So if you are trying to clear anxiety (which is thinking about what you don’t want to have happen in the future, you body reacts as if it is really happening now which could trigger this whole chain of fear from the past.
The only way to clear the full chain of negative emotions is to use time line therapy techniques™ on the past events, and emotions that we all seem to drag around like baggage full of ‘negative fear-based Yucky-ness” (yes that is a “techinal” term 
)
time line gestalt
The other thing that could be causing the 24/7 anxiety is something that we call a “Limiting Decision” or “Childhood Vow”. An example of this is the person who at some point decided (either consciously or unconsciously) that “if you really care about someone you worry.”
They may not understand that worry, like anxiety, is simply thinking about bad things happening. There could be some kind of decision you’ve made at some point in your past that is constantly running in the background like a computer program. It might have even served a positive purpose at some point but now it’s causing problems.
This is also something we can clear relatively easily with Time Line.
Ready to Overcome Anxiety?
I wish I had some easy self help solution for you but sometimes you need to work with a qualified practitioner, therapist or coach. Michael Jorden always had a coach. Tiger Woods has a coach.
The important thing is to find an NLP practitioner who is certified in Time Line Therapy™ Techniques. Some NLP practitioners do “time-lining” but I’ve found they lack the same kinds of skills as actual Time Line Therapy practitioners who have trained with Tad James, the creator of this technique.
This sounds like a self promotional plug and maybe it is. This is an area I’ve worked in for almost a decade now and I’m pretty good at what I do. So if you are ready to clear this old programming please contact my office and let’s see if we are a good match to work together.
Call toll free. 888-598-7709