Feeling anxious about meeting people and socialising is something that almost each and every one of us will experience to some degree at some stage in our lives.

There are very few people who could comfortably drop into a situation where they would feel ”ill at ease”, for example when having a causal chat with the Prime Minister, or go to a dinner with the CEO of their company or for that matter even going on a date without feeling a little nervous about saying the wrong thing. For some of us, it is even chatting with someone that we are not completely at ease with or perhaps the situation that we find ourselves in.

Any of the above activities or just plainly being out of our comfort zone brings on a significant release of adrenaline which flows through the body in response to the perceived threat – whatever that might be. Even people who seem very confident and outgoing have all had moments when they have felt uncomfortable or embarrassed in their lives.

So nearly everyone experiences social nervousness to some degree, some time, but some people appear to get anxious much more consistently or intensely than other people, almost as if they had learned how to do it, like a sort of negative skill set.

It appears that people who get themselves into those higher states of anxiety will often have characteristics in common. It is not uncommon to habitually do things like imagining that everyone is going to judge them and that perceived threat has them seeing in their own minds people that are going to be intimidating, maybe a feeling that they are standing over them, looking unfriendly and even being critical of them. Another common pattern of being shy is that negative internal self-talk, that fearful voice, telling themselves that people just won’t like them.

Shy and anxious people also have a tendency to focus on how they feel when they are socialising, worrying about whether they feel anxious instead of paying attention to what’s actually going on around them and actually enjoying themselves.

These types of patterns can become quite habitual, so after a while a person doesn’t even realise they are buying into those emotions!!

Therefore, allow hypnotherapy and counselling to assist by:

• retraining the mind to leave those patterns of excessive nervousness behind; as the brain is extremely capable of updating its instinctive learnings, and hypnosis is an optimal learning state to absorb and integrate new patterns of emotion and behaviour.
• build self-confidence/self-esteem; and
• really start to enjoy socialising as an exciting opportunity, and that the natural adrenaline which at times can be felt when socialising will become a key part of that excitement.

For further information contact us on (03) 5223 2370 or via email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Karen Holt Clinical Hypnotherapy and Counselling
Clinical Hypnotherapist
AMAHS, MASCH