This post is about the power of acting, fake it until you make it, pretending. All these things that you’re probably going to hate or you feel wrong to do because you feel not authentic when you have social anxiety.
I felt this way before for a very long time.
In a handout which I have, Dr. Richard says this:
Fake it if you need to do it first. The more you practice this the less fake it becomes and the more genuine and authentic you will feel. We need to do things first before we start to feel natural about them.
Even though you don’t feel natural about it at first, when you begin acting in a certain way it becomes easier and more natural.
So finally it’s no longer acting it all. It is simply a natural behavior on your part.
So let’s talk about, from the neurobiology perspective what natural behavior means. It means the stuff wired in your head, in a certain way. Those pathways are wired.
So it feels natural because those pathways just activate and they run but it doesn’t mean they’re true for you.
They don’t have to be your pathway because the social anxiety pathway didn’t use to exist.
Now they exist and they feel natural simply because they exist there.
That’s what we do when we rewire our brain because eventually your social pathways will be natural. They’re really isn’t a natural one in this sense, it’s just kinda what’s going on in your head.
This was a hard one for me to get. And here’s the clincher of how I got it.
Let’s assume that what you have is natural because it is wired in there but you gotta see the logic. It didn’t use to be natural for you but now you call it natural so there’s a disparity and a logic.
So I wrote this statement down once it clicks for me about this faking thing:
Well, if I’m gonna fake it till I make it to be social given my social anxiety, I’ve been faking it this whole time.
My social anxiety is a big lie that I put into my head. Basically, it’s just a story, it’s just a lie so I’d rather tell a more fun lie or a story.
I really look at it more of a story. A lie has a bad connotation.
But if you say I’m lying to myself inauthentic, when you got your anxiety you are being inauthentic and you are lying to yourself.
You have to realize this. This is exactly what you did, what i did, what we’ve all done.
Even though you don’t feel like it you will eventually learn how to act against those feelings.
It’s gonna be easier when you’re in cognitive therapy, your affirmation work is gonna set you up so you’re gonna be successful.
But in some point, you have to act against those feelings. It’s just the bottom line. That’s just what I’ve had to do.
It’s part of the behavioral part of the therapy.
Here’s the statement that I wrote down:
Once I figured out that my social anxiety story was a lie, something that had been installed into me in an emotional situation with a lying story, my anti-social behaviors are in act themselves. One that I used to protect myself because I didn’t know any better.
So acting in this new way is just a set of behaviors and thoughts that represent an open, warm and passionate individual who doesn’t hide from people and likes to be social.
So that’s the statement I created.
In another video, I talked about rational conditional statements.
I explained the negative stuff I could but I didn’t blame myself and I let it into what I want to be.
It’s a pretty powerful rational conditional statement that Dr. Richards teaches about.
You were faking it till you made it to have social anxiety.
If you get this concept, I can help you a lot because you can actually start to be really free just by understanding fundamentally to stop creating stories and put some good stuff in your head.
For me, it was a sort of a turning point, I’ve been doing the work for 10 or 11 weeks in or maybe longer.
So when negative thoughts come out, I just hit this handout and then I process through it and read some other things, the fundamental shift.
I call it fundamental shift because it’s almost like a belief locks in a place that builds a new platform for me then another belief locks into place and gets stronger and stronger so that these little realization happen and you can’t go back because all you gotta do is remember them.
Sometimes you forget and then you remember that you have somehow learned those things.
Fake it till you make it means you wanna change and choose who you want to be and then practice that. Live repetition, do it over and over again until it gets into your brain. So you can rewire your brain with the neuroplasticity.
Comments? Leave them below. I would love to know your thoughts.
Best,
David
