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PENNER MARNI
KANADAI ANGOLTANÁRNŐ, COACH, MENTÁLHIGIÉNÉS SZAKEMBER
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Itt vannak a blog posztok, amiket angol nyelven írtam.
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BECAUSE ADULTS NEED CLOSE FRIENDSHIPS TOO
Since I found my solution to Social Anxiety... I have been passionate about everything to do with close friendship... However, whenever I would try to read up on close friendship... all I could really find were articles on ROMANTIC relationships... I thought to myself... Does NO ONE care about friendship the way I do?!! Where were the helpful articles on... 👬 How to make friends? 👬 How to deepen friendships? 👬 How to be a good close friend? 👬 How to handle emotional prob


HOW I RECOVERED FROM SOCIAL ANXIETY...
I was 21 years old... And suddenly one day... I was scared of my best friend... I had scary thoughts fill my head making me so nervous... I couldn't talk couldn't focus... I was absolutely terrified... And then I became scared of other people... Until I was terrified of everyone... Everyone... My life as I had known it was gone... I lived in a bubble... Unable to connect Unable to make friends... Unable to do the easiest of tasks... And it lasted for years and years... Until


THE WISDOM OF THE "CHICKEN WING STAIN".
Yesterday someone asked me for an example of how "Our Strengths are the same as our Weaknesses". I looked down at my skirt and saw the perfect example. I realized that I had been walking around Budapest with a huge "CHICKEN WING STAIN" on my skirt all morning. We had had chicken wings for dinner the night before... and... Oops... At that moment, I could have thought... . A) "I am such an absent-minded fool. I don't even have the awareness to look at the clothes I am putting


THE POWER OF TALKING ABOUT OUR PROBLEMS...
Every once in a while, I encounter a disconnect between how I live my life and what appears to be the societal norm... One of these areas is "talking about our problems... I do it all the time! :) . I meet with a friend and I tell her what's on my mind... my joys, my struggles, the problems I cannot solve... She helps me feel less alone... She gives me perspective... New solutions come into view... She tells me about her problems, and we do the same for her too! <3 . So, I am


MY SOLUTION DID NOT LIE IN THE WORDS "SOCIAL ANXIETY"...
The fact of the matter is that I found my solution to social anxiety... by NOT talking about social anxiety at all... After my terrible experiences with psychologists... I REFUSED to say the words "social anxiety" to anyone... I refused to be pathologized... I refused to obsess over my symptoms... I refused to think about this one problem I could NOT control... . My solution 5 years later in Hungary involved focusing on everything else: 1. HONESTY... I focused on being as hon


HOW I PULLED MYSELF OUT OF ENTREPRENEURIAL DEPRESSION
When I was 35 years old... I had an inspiring idea... I was going to help young mothers with Postpartum Depression and Anxiety in a completely novel way. I was going to help mothers understand how our SOCIETY was making mothers miserable... and EMPOWER them to feel really great about themselves. . So, I set out to read as much as I could about Anxiety, Depression, and Anger in all areas of the Social Sciences... I became a Certified Professional Coach... and started coach


DARING TO SHOW THE LOVE WE FEEL INSIDE
It is human nature to be preoccupied with what other people think of us. "Do other people like me?" "Do other people think I am okay?" This preoccupation can be so strong that it can make us FEAR other people, AVOID them, try to IMPRESS them, or feel extremely ANXIOUS around them. But the thing is... Those people we are trying to impress... also want people to like THEM. They are preoccupied with exactly the same thing! . After suffering with severe social anxiety for 5 yea


WHY ANXIETY USUALLY COMES FIRST... AND DEPRESSION SECOND...
I have had people ask me why I don't write more about depression... Well, I view depression as the state of despair we experience when we believe there are NO SOLUTIONS to our problems. For my clients, their problem is usually their anxiety. Anxiety is the first indicator that... "ALARM, ALARM, There is a problem. You can't handle your environment or the perspective that you have in this environment. You must make some sort of a change." So, once I convince my clients tha


THE UNRESOLVABLE ISSUE...
THE UNRESOLVABLE ISSUE... I have this issue... that I have never been able to solve... It just stays and stays... making my life a living hell... . Is there a solution? Is there some way I could change my own mind... Change my perspective... Change the way I live my life? . What if I start talking about it? Start giving it a name? What if I write out exactly what I feel and why? Then will I find a solution? What IS the solution? I won't know until I give this pr


HOW TO EMBRACE BEING A SUPER INTENSE PERSON...
When I was growing up, all I ever heard was... "We feel LOVE towards our romantic partner, and we LIKE our friends". Well... by the time I was 20, I was having very intense friendships, and I LOVED my friends so much!! My friends and I were so close... so honest... so present in the conversation... and we lost ourselves in each other's eyes as we talked. Well, this experience was way too intense for me... Wasn't this intensity supposed to be reserved for romantic love?!! . T


BUT WHAT ABOUT SOCIAL INTROVERTS??
There is a whole category of people that the internet never mentions... SOCIAL INTROVERTS Social introverts are NOT the "typical introverts" who are always going on about wanting to be alone. They are not extroverts either. Social introverts crave meaningful, intense, close 1-on-1 connections more than anything else. They crave the kind of friendship that our society rarely acknowledges exists. When they meet a potential friend, they want a REAL connection... an INTEN


THE POWER OF EMBRACING REALITY
We often spend our whole lives... wishing that we LOOKED differently than we do... wishing that our PERSONALITY was different than it is... wishing that our LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES were different than they are... or wishing that our PAST had gone differently than it went... . We never talk about how common this is... to have this alternate reality haunting us... harassing us... causing way too much guilt and shame... We believe that we SHOULD be that person in our mind... When r


TO THE WISDOM AT THE ROOT OF MY IRRATIONAL FEAR...
I was in the midst of making a video, and I started having this crazy irrational fear about a particular person not liking what I was saying in the video. 😂 I thought... "Oh no... I am having THIS fear again?!!" And then I realized that this irrational fear was just a SIGN that I had much more important things to do right now than make this video. Our anxiety & irrational fears are a SIGN, a SYMPTOM that we are not listening to our own self-honesty... I was trying to negl


THE DAY I STOPPED ENTERING THE "SHAME STORM"...
I used to be the biggest perfectionist on the planet... I would make an itsy-bitsy mistake... and then it would spiral into a huge "shame storm"... I would feel one shame... and then another shame... and another shame... and another shame... Until I was absolutely convinced that I was the most despicable human being on the planet, who was flawed in every imaginable way... . And then I would go into my PAST... and bring up shame after shame after shame... And then I would go


HOW THE "BATHROOM BREAK" HELPED ME OVERCOME MY SOCIAL ANXIETY
My solution to Social Anxiety was "Honesty, Love, and Acceptance". However, really should rename it: "Honesty, Love, Acceptance & THE BATHROOM BREAK" 😆 And this is why... My solution to social anxiety was learning to alternate between Honesty, Love, and Acceptance... Here is how it worked with close friends... 1. LOVE I met up with my friend and told myself "LOVE HER". This prevented me from going into fear. <3 2. HONESTY Whenever I had a feeling or thought that was getting


IS SOCIAL ANXIETY AN IN-BORN OR ACQUIRED TRAIT?
Someone wrote me saying, "But social anxiety can not be overcome, just managed". From my experience, it CAN be overcome. There are often basic traits that make us more prone to having social anxiety that DO have to be accepted and embraced... such as being... 1. highly sensitive 2. empathic 3. highly intelligent 4. highly creative 5. introverted 6. intuitive But in my opinion, social anxiety is NOT an in-born trait. It is an ACQUIRED trait in a disconnected society where peo


I THOUGHT I WAS BUTT UGLY... BUT I WASN'T...
I would like to announce that I "wasted" the first 40 years of my life... believing that I was butt ugly... when I wasn't. You see... there were certain parts of my body that I believed were SO UGLY that no man could ever love me... I magnified these flaws to the 100th extreme... ignoring all the areas that I found to be acceptable in myself. Those areas didn't matter... I believed that my worth in men's eyes was determined by my WORST traits... I thought the problem lied in


HOW TO EMBRACE BEING "AVERAGE"...
There is a societal belief that being "average" is unacceptable... We have to be "special" and "stand out" in some way... And Facebook is no exception! If we post something "special"... then Facebook will exponentially show this post to more and more people... However, if we post something "average"... then Facebook might not even show it to our closest of friends... "Special" is given exposure... "Average" is wiped right off the page... . However... becoming "average" was su


HOW TO OVERCOME THE "SHAME DOMINO EFFECT"
Anxiety is often caused and perpetuated by a domino effect of shames. One shame led to the next shame, which led to the next shame, which led to the next shame... This makes us feel so incredibly FLAWED in every way...which makes it feel impossible that we will ever overcome either our shame or anxiety. . This is why I have developed a UNIQUE PROCESS to help my clients overcome every single shame in their "shame domino effect". . STEP 1: To begin, my clients fill out my


WHAT MAKES MY APPROACH TO ANXIETY UNIQUE?
This week, someone asked me how I acquired my knowledge on anxiety... I WROTE: I had really bad postpartum & generalized anxiety in my 30's... However, neither the medical model nor the mainstream psychological model could explain what was happening to me or where the solution lied. So, I set out to do my own research in all areas of the social sciences so that I could figure it out on my own. Such as... - relational psychology - sociology - anthropology - European gestal


THE SOLUTION TO ANXIETY DOESN'T LIE IN A LABEL
Both my client and I were traumatized by the system... I was traumatized through the use of the label "Social Anxiety"... One of my clients was traumatized through the use of the label "Agoraphobia"... The Exposure Therapy my client received was probably some of the worst abuse I have ever heard of... even worse than mine. :( . This week, I said the phrase "Overcome your Agoraphobia", and my client said to me, "Do you think we could not use that word? I have received so


HOW I OVERCAME THE FEAR OF PUTTING MYSELF OUT ON THE INTERNET
I would write a simple post... about nothing... I would click the blue "Post" button... And in 5 second's time, I would feel excruciating pain... Like someone was going to burst into the room and start screaming at me, Criticizing at me... Giving me royal shit... There was nothing WRONG with the post itself. I felt that it was ME who was flawed... And by posting, I was exposing these flaws to the world... . And then I finally realized... this too is a form of SOCIAL ANXIETY!


WHAT IF THE CURRENT "EVIDENCE" IS IRRELEVANT?
We often look at the current "evidence"... and believe that it determines our WORTH... - "I have NO FRIENDS... so I am not worthy of friendship." - "I have NO ROMANTIC PARTNER... so I am not worthy of love." - "I have NO JOB... so I am not worthy of work." - "I have NO MONEY... so I am not worthy of success." . We look at the current evidence, and believe that it determines our WORTH and our FUTURE... When in reality... Our WORTH is a constant... and our FUTURE can be whatev


THE RELIEF WE FEEL WHEN THE "SHAME CLOUD" DISAPPEARS...
One of my clients just freed herself from a pervasive shame that was affecting every single aspect of her life... causing anxiety, preventing her from connecting with people, preventing her from being happy... And this week if lifted. She told me that she has been having feelings of happiness unlike any feeling she has had in a long time. <3 It is a feeling of gratitude... of relief... of joy... of being truly present in the moment... . Anxiety and Depression are often caus
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