When overcoming anxiety, we BOTH have to resolve our own negative emotions AND deal with the difficult people in our lies. The thing to remember is that... 🔸 We anxiety-prone people tend to INTERNALIZE our shame & unhappiness. 🔸 The people who hurt us tend to EXTERNALIZE their shame & unhappiness onto others. Once we understand that that both sets of symptoms are simply Shame & Unhappiness in disguise... then, we can BETTER understand the people who hurt us, learn to not t

When I had social anxiety, I had a horrible dilemma: I was terrified of the PEOPLE who could potentially help me. :( Whenever I talked with anyone, I was so filled with anxiety and intrusive thoughts that I couldn't focus on a word they said. So how on earth could anyone help me?! I was trapped... locked... in a jail that had no key. . When I became a social anxiety coach, I found myself experiencing this problem from the other side... The people who I could help THE MOST wer

In our individualistic society, the field of psychology has often assumed that the INDIVIDUAL has a "disorder" that the INDIVIDUAL must overcome. However, I view mental illness as a SOCIETAL problem... and that the solution lies in having the right CONNECTION. In particular, we need the kind of connection that helps us feel LESS ALONE, less "weird", less crazy... and helps us truly believe that we are GOOD ENOUGH just the way we are. . For EVERY SINGLE ONE of my anxieties

We often hear about the power of journaling... and I fully agree... But for me, one additional factor makes it so much more effective for me... I prefer to journal to SOMEONE who can help me... By writing to this person, I usually end up helping myself. <3 . This is why I am passionate about my clients being able to journal to me at any time. There is so much power in being able to talk through our problems in the present moment... while giving us both more insight into what

I used to have really crippling Social Anxiety with everyone... including family members... Nothing helped me... therapy, medication, nothing... :( Then one day when I was 25 years old, I bought an impulse plane ticket to Budapest, Hungary to spend 8 months learning Hungarian. Maybe THIS could shake me out of this hell... . I lived in a student residence, and I managed to find a friend who truly understood me... and I was able to be fully honest with him. By the end of my s

We often don't reach out to people because we are worried we might 'impose'. There is this societal assumption that people would rather not be bothered so that they can focus on their busyness, their productivity and all the shit they have to get done... However... When people don't 'impose' on us... we risk believing that no one is thinking about us... that no one cares about us... that no one wants to spend time with us. :( . This is a huge contradiction: We don't

Many people who suffer from anxiety are in fact "highly sensitive EMPATHS". This means that we have an exceptional ability to read what other people are thinking and feeling at any moment. . However, this ability is often turned on its head... causing... - Anxiety, Depression, Anger... - People Pleasing... - Mind-Reading... - A Rollercoaster of Painful Emotions... - Self-Destructive Behaviours It can be difficult to listen to our own intuition... and identify what it is that

One of the craziest things that I used to believe when I had social anxiety was that I was BORING... and that I didn't have anything interesting to say... However, as you might have noticed in my posts yesterday containing "ass time" and "butt ugly"... "boring" is not the most appropriate qualifier for me... I simply hadn't figured out the secret to meaningful conversation... due to being locked in the vicious cycle of social anxiety... . I then spent a year in Hungary,

I remember when I got my first insult on the internet... Some random guy came to visit my page, and saw that I neglected to put a PURPLE TITLE on one of my posts. 😲 He proceeded to insult me right on that post during the middle of my European night while I was sleeping. I proceeded to delete the comment and block the F-er... whoever he was... 😂 But somehow my mind had equated, "One random F-er insulted my post"... to "The Whole World is just Waiting to Insult my Posts!" And

We are socialized to believe that there exists a perfect woman and a perfect man... and that THIS is the person we should be... We should, therefore, have a certain... appearance body weight height voice personality intelligence sexuality ethnicity religion social status work status financial status relationship status family background living situation... And when we DON'T, we are encouraged to worry about it, obsess about it, and spend whatever money it take to improve it..

When I had crippling social anxiety, all I wanted was to be "normal"... I never would have imagined that the solution to social anxiety actually makes us MORE psychologically attractive than the average person... It turned out that the solution to my social anxiety was actually the ideal recipe for connecting with others. <3 Here are the 3 elements of what my solution entailed, and why they also increase our psychological attractiveness. . 1. "HONESTY" enabled me to simplify

I am now halfway done my Improv course... and I did a pretty good job on the stage yesterday. The first two classes, I couldn't get out of my head... I kept reminding myself that I had no idea what I was doing... that I was the only person doing it in my second language... and that I'd better do the next exercise well.... Well, on the 3rd class, I'd had enough... I decided to apply my anxiety techniques of "Love" and "Honesty"... and pretend that I had just drunk 2 pints of

WHY I SOMETIMES USE THE WORD "F*CK" IN MY COACHING... I have developed an Emotion-Based Approach to Anxiety that works really well when we use the word "f*ck". 😄 And here is why... 1. In order to be perfectly HONEST with ourselves and others, sometimes we have to toss in the word "f*ck". 2. In order to foster powerful POSITIVE EMOTIONS, we can gain courage by using the word "f*ck". 3. In order to ACCEPT our anxiety symptoms as they come and go, we can choose to NOT GIVE

Here is a conversation I recently had with a client of mine... MY CLIENT: If I told my family members what I just told you, they would think I was crazy. MARNI: Oh no, you're not crazy. I have totally felt like this before. MY CLIENT: You have? MARNI: Oh yeah... you and I are very similar. MY CLIENT: We are? I'm like you? MARNI: Totally! We are VERY similar. We are both highly sensitive. We can feel what other people are thinking and feeling... We are both open-minded, and

When I came to Hungary for the first time, one of the first pictures I took was of a "Trabant" car. They are so weird... so unique... so different... so out of this world... I wasn't as interested in standard beauty... or the tourists spots... I loved this car because it was DIFFERENT and unique! I couldn't stop admiring every Trabant I saw! . With human beings, it is the same! We believe that we need to fit the societal standard... the societal mold... When in reality, peopl