I used to be the worst mind-reader on the planet... I was constantly in other people's business... worrying about whether they liked me... whether they were judging me... whether they were mad at me... I spent my life in OTHER people's heads... constructing the worst possible fantasies about all the horrible things they could be thinking about me... . Until one day, I made this earth-shattering realization: 🔸 When I was worried that people were MAD at me... I was usually

As terrible as anxiety feels, I actually view anxiety as an ESCAPE. What happens is that we feel such painful Primary Emotions (like shame, failure, guilt, sadness, powerlessness, loneliness, etc.)... but instead of addressing them, we ESCAPE into terrifying irrational fears. Our Primary Emotions are SO PAINFUL that we resist them however we can. For example... 1. We ESCAPE our emotions and go into ANXIETY. 2. We NUMB our emotions and fall into DEPRESSION. 3. We EXTERNALIZE

One concern a lot of my social anxiety clients have is that even if they do overcome their social anxiety... no one will like them anyway due to their ugly personality. When in reality, their personalities aren't ugly at all... and here is why: Social anxiety is a Shame problem. In addition to causing social anxiety, Shame causes many other potentially 'ugly' traits, such as... 2. Resentment 3. Anger 4. Feelings of superiority 5. Feelings of inferiority 6. Depression 7. Ind

WHY BECOMING A SOCIAL ANXIETY COACH WAS THE "LAST" THING I WANTED TO DO I didn't set out to be a Social Anxiety Coach. In fact, I refused to utter the words "social anxiety' from 22 to 40 years old. I found my solution to my crippling social anxiety at 26 without saying the words "social anxiety" at all... And I was worried that if I ever said these words again... my social anxiety would come back. . Then, in my 30's, I decided to become a "Happiness Coach for Mothers". I res

I have two groups of clients who I help a lot: 1. Social Anxiety Clients (who tend to be introverts) 2. Generalized Anxiety & Motherhood Anxiety Clients (who tend to be both Extroverts and Introverts) . I have noticed a fundamental difference between the kind of coaching that extroverts and introverts require... . EXTROVERTS need to be able to express themselves freely to someone who understands. It is by expressing themselves freely that they see connections, have insights

In our society, we are often led to believe that our "worth" is determined by money-related factors... 🔸 The more money we have invested into FASHION... the more "worth" we have... 🔸 The more money we have invested into our CAR... the more "worth" we have... 🔸 The more money we have invested into a HOUSE in a good neighbourhood... the more "worth" we have... 🔸 The more money we have invested into our BODIES (gym memberships, diets, cosmetics, nose jobs, boob jobs, penis

THE OTHER DAY I FAILED... I forced myself to do something... Though I was way too tired... I could hardly speak... Couldn't focus... Got more and more nervous... Totally BOMBED the task... :( . Will it happen again? What if it happens now? Or now? Or now? Or now? . THIS is how anxiety begins. . What if it was a fluke? What it doesn't matter? What if everyone fails some of the time? . The other day I failed... And I WILL fail again... But instead of it ruining my life... And m

I had just written a vulnerable post online... and was feeling those familiar sensations of intense shame... I felt horrible physical pain in my arms... I felt so small... Every muscle in my body wanted to take it down... I felt so horribly exposed... And then something dawned on me... I WAS BEING SELF-CENTERED! - I was assuming that the world revolved around ME! - I thought that people were thinking about ME! - I thought that people were busy judging ME... - I thought that

Our society has very strict "feeling rules" of what people are supposed to feel in different situations... For example... 🔸 Men should only feel STRONG EMOTIONS and never feel weak or vulnerable. 🔸 Young Mothers should only feel BLISS & FULFILLMENT in every second of the day. 🔸 Everyone should feel HAPPY, and SMILEY, and LOVE talking about the weather... 🤣 If ever our feelings don't correspond to these "feeling rules", then we are supposed to TRY to feel the appropriate

I overcame really crippling social anxiety by applying a solution that I call "Honesty, Love, and Acceptance". It was a very similar solution to the solution that Dr. John Nash found in the movie "A Beautiful Mind". However, whenever I tell people about the "LOVE" part, they often have difficulty understanding what I'm trying to say. They say things like... "If I love people, they will walk all over me." . It took me a while, but I finally realized that there was both a Behav

Why did you label me? Why did you look down on me? Why did you keep yourself a secret the way you did? Why did you focus on my symptoms? And obsess over my thoughts? Why didn't you see what my REAL PROBLEM actually was? Why were you so distant? Why didn't you HELP me? Why did you make my problems WORSE? . It's because YOU also had problems... That's why you studied psychology... But psychology didn't help you either... It wasn't your fault... It was the fault of academia... M

🔸 Going from thinking one is inherently "different"... to believing that we are all fundamentally the same. 🔸 Going from believing that one is "inferior"... to believing that one is equal to all. 🔸 Going from being locked in an inward spiral... to moving outwards and loving the world. . Human Beings are social animals... and so are you and me. <3 Maybe you just haven't found the right "catalyst connection"... or the right method that will work for you. Check out my vi

Anger is one of those emotions that can cause us a lot of guilt, remorse, and being labelled with a so-called "anger problem". :( So what is anger really... and what is the solution? Well... Anger is the emotion we feel when we wish that REALITY was DIFFERENT than it is... 🔸 We wish that WE were different than we are... or 🔸 We wish that our LIVES were different than they are... or 🔸 We wish that OTHER PEOPLE were different than they are... . So, our anger is trying to tel

The first step to overcoming anxiety is to not view anxiety as an innate personality trait. Anxiety is not a part of who you are. It is a SECONDARY SYMPTOM that is being caused by something else underneath. . Personality traits are things like - introversion, - high sensitivity, - being an empath, etc... . But, anxiety is completely different... It is an indication of a PROBLEM... It is a SYMPTOM... It is a SIGN... Of painful emotions or a painful situation under

WHAT IS THE PATH OUT OF DEPRESSION? <3 We often fall into depression when we don't see any SOLUTION to our problems. This can make us feel hopeless... powerless... and trapped... :( It can make us feel like giving up... because there doesn't appear to be any doable solution in sight. <3 . On the weekend, I talked to a friend of mine on the phone who had been feeling severely depressed and suicidal... When I asked him why he was feeling this way, he said it was because hi

ACHIEVING THE WISDOM OF "THE SERENITY PRAYER" <3 A friend of mine has found a good counselor, and I was asking all kinds of questions about her counselor's approach. It was so interesting to observe the similarities and differences between her counselor and me... But even though our approaches were different... the end goal was the same. . My friend and I came to a cool conclusion: The goal of all good therapists, coaches, counselors, and spiritual healers is to accompan

With every single anxiety I've ever had... I was terrified of the worst-case scenario... 🔸 With Social Anxiety... I was terrified that everyone was going to reject me. 🔸 With Postpartum Anxiety... I was terrified that something bad was going to happen to my children... 🔸 With Internet Anxiety, I was terrified that a "hater" was going to come and tear my work to shreds... All of these fears consumed me... in every minute of every day... :( . At first, I told myself, "Just b

HOW I OVERCAME MY GENERALIZED ANXIETY (Roller Coaster of Emotions from Hell) For the first 36 years of my life I had horrible generalized anxiety... It felt like this horrible ROLLER COASTER of EMOTIONAL PAIN that went on and on and on and on... and never stopped. However, since I had had it all my life, I somehow accepted it as part of who I was... I was a Basket Case... and that was that. . However, when I became a young mother of 2 babies 18 months apart, the roller c

One of the biggest challenges when we are trying to make friends and romantic partners is this: We can find ourselves too attached to the OUTCOME. We WANT more friends in our city... or we WANT to have a romantic partner... So, we go on the HUNT to find one... People tell us that if we just work a little harder, then surely we can achieve this feat... However, this attachment to the outcome can make us appear NEEDY and DESPERATE... which actually REPELS potential friends and

At the root of so much anxiety are societal expectations... We are supposed to BE someone that we're not... We are supposed to be DOING something that we're not... We are supposed to be SAYING something that we're not... . We think the problem lies in US... because we feel so pained inside... When in reality... the problem lies in this DISCONNECT between who we really ARE and who we are "supposed" to be on the outside... However, people with anxiety... can become the stronges

One of the most painful things about anxiety is that it can put us way behind our adult peers... :( We can find ourselves "late" in our... - Studies... - Work... - Dating... - Living situation... - Financial situation... - Etc... The fact that we don't follow the typical adult timeline can make us feel what I call the third wave of shame... We feel shame for being behind on the timeline of life... Due to anxiety... I finished my University degree at 27... I started dating whe

When we have anxiety, it is really common to get caught up in a vicious spiral of doom. We feel HORRIBLE in this present moment... and so we predict that we will always feel this horrible for ever more. Why does this happen? Well, they have found that our brains are only able to feel ONE EMOTION at any one moment in time. Therefore, if we feel horrible now... then we will imagine feeling horrible in the future as well. In other words, we "contaminate" our predictions of the f

Some of my clients come to me with both Social Anxiety and another Anxiety as well (generalized, postpartum, agoraphobia, health, safety, OCD, etc.). These anxieties often feed off of each other... with one anxiety making the other one worse... which makes the other one even worse... moving them down into a negative spiral from hell. . One of the things we can to move up out of this spiral is to HONESTLY OWN the Other Anxiety. <3 For example, if you have GENERALIZED ANXIE

I swear... Introverts who have overcome social anxiety can become the most social people on the planet. My client (who used to have crippling social anxiety) met someone on a friend app last week... They scheduled their first meeting for Sunday... Before their meeting, my client and I had a coaching session to discuss what perspective to take. My client decided to be completely honest and just let everything out... No filters... No pretending... No small talk... No lies... An