Social Anxiety Disorder Explained (The REAL Cause)

You're about to discover what social anxiety really is and where it really comes from. And it's so important to watch this video all the way to the end because if you don't actually understand social anxiety and you just think what most people think about it, then you'll probably do what most people do, which is stay stuck in social anxiety or some form of it for their entire lives. I'm Dr. Aziz, I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence and I have six best selling books on confidence, several that are focused entirely on social anxiety. I've led courses and live events and other things on this topic. And most importantly, I know it from my own personal experience, having spent over a decade in the cage of social anxiety, that constant fear of what other people are going to think of me and holding myself back. There's a couple of key things that you have to understand to really know what social anxiety is. So most importantly, you can set yourself free. That's what I'm all about right now is liberation, right? Like how do we help as many people liberate themselves from social anxiety? Just like I have, Just like you can watch this video, subscribe to my channel, watch all the videos on this channel and you will really start to see this is absolutely possible for you and I'm going to show you how. But what is social anxiety? So when people hear that, they think anxiety, okay, that's an anxiety problem, maybe an anxiety disorder. There's something wrong with me, or there's something wrong with my brain chemistry, or maybe there's just something wrong with my nervous system. And I would say, here's what social anxiety really is. It is actually a pattern and it's something that you do. So it's better to start thinking of social anxiety instead of as a noun, like a thing that you have. I've contracted social anxiety. Like you got salmonella or something. It's actually a verb. It's a pattern that you're practicing, right? You could be walking or not walking, you're sitting, you're lying down, you could be anxietying. That doesn't really roll off the tongue, but you know what I mean? Or you can not be doing that. And every single person I've ever talked to, no matter what age, no matter how severe their social anxiety, I ask them, has there been a moment in the last week or month even where you were with somebody and you didn't feel that anxiety? Every single person, I bet you can answer this for yourself too. Every single person says, oh yeah, I was with My mom or my friend, I was with my dog or something and they, you just feel relaxed. What's happening? You're not social anxietying there. So it's a pattern. That's the first key thing you have to understand about it. The second thing is the pattern. Where does it come from? Does it come from childhood? Does it come from family? Does it come from your genes? Well, that's a longer explanation we can go into, but the short version of it is it actually comes from none of those. Now I'm not saying there's not experiences you had that might have taught you certain things, but the result is it comes from. And here's the key. Reveal this video. Social anxiety really comes from a learned misperception of yourself. That's a really important sentence. All social anxiety comes down to is one thing which is a learned misperception of yourself. First part, learned. Maybe you did learn it from family, you learned it from friends, you learned it from parents, you learned it from the kids at school, you learn it from your siblings. But what is it that you learned? Well, it's the misperception of yourself. So perception is what you perceive, how you see yourself, how you think about yourself, your attitude towards yourself. Am I good or bad, am I pretty or ugly, am I smart or dumb? And all the other thousand things you could think about yourself and you have a misperception of yourself when you are social anxietying, when you're practicing that pattern and the perception of yourself is bad, less than unlikable. Something is distasteful or repulsive about me because that's what I learned from. Insert whoever you want here. Your parents, your siblings, your kids that you went to school with and that might have been taught to you very directly, like someone pointing at you and saying you're bad and you're awful in this. And maybe you grew up in an abusive household and it could also have been transmitted very subtly. Your parents just tighten up, like, ooh, you know, they get all uncomfortable. Don't go bother those people. I see this all the time and I always try to do what I can to just relax the parents. You know, we're sitting there at an airport and their little two year old, three year old comes up to us and is like, what's your name? Right? And the parent runs over like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he's bothering you. And that kid is learning whether they know it or not, that, oh, going up, people is going to be bothering them. I wonder, there's something wrong with doing that. Is there something wrong with me? And we add to this perception month after month, year after year. And by the time you're in 12, 13, 14, 15, some of those teenage years, it just skyrockets and it locks in. And then here is the final part of social anxiety, really explained. Explained, is that misperception locks in and becomes what I call a calcified identity. And what a calcified identity is. Your identity is just how you see yourself. Calcification happens in your arteries if they're less healthy, if you don't eat great food, maybe you're sedentary. Your arteries are supposed to be pliable. They're supposed to, you know, expand so you can pump more blood when you're exercising and contract, say when you're in a cold environment. This is like a healthy cardiovascular system. If your system is not as healthy, the arteries don't become pliable, malleable. They just. They rigid. They become what's called calcified. There's a buildup of calcium and other deposits in there. Your identity can become calcified. And this calcified identity means like, this is just how I am. This is the way it is. This is stuck. And now that misperception is lodged in there, even though, guess what, it was never true in the first place. But if you believe it, then all the symptoms of social anxiety mushroom out of that, right? You ever. We live in a forest, and certain times a year you walk out and overnight, like a thousand mushrooms have just exploded out of the ground. That's what the symptoms of social anxiety are like. I want to talk to people. I'm afraid of rejection. They're not going to like me. Those negative predictions, we could go on and on about the thousand different symptoms, but they're all coming from this core root. Now, if you want to know how to shift this and change this in a fundamental, lifelong way, there are so many ways to do that. Head over to my website, draziz.com, that'S-R-A Z I Z dot com. You can find a free mini course called Five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. Information about my books. I have a course on there called Confidence University. It's actually a collection of four courses that'll teach you everything you need to know about confidence and so much more. So check that out. Just know that this is a completely solvable problem and you can learn a new pattern in your life. If you take nothing else from this video, know that have some optimism, some hope, some positive anticipation that you can change this in your life. And if you want more support with that, I would love to do that with you. Until we speak again, May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.