Stop Judging Yourself and Live

Ellen Hendriksen, Ph.D., How To Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety

Most of us know shyness occasionally. Not everyone knows Social Anxiety, the death spiral of doubt, self-recrimination, and despair that prevents some people from having the most basic conversation. Not merely introverted or soft-spoken, social anxiety sufferers are masters of self-flagellation, punishing ourselves for missteps we haven’t made yet, policing our actions violently. And most realize we’re only hurting ourselves, but we can’t figure out how to stop.

Dr. Ellen Hendriksen left research psychology because she’d rather work with patients. Now a clinician at Boston University and a podcaster, she works heavily with social anxiety sufferers, and admits still struggling with its effects herself. Having conducted her own research into the field, she compiles her own insights, others’ discoveries, and her clinical practice into a hands-on guide to changing our thought patterns which keep social anxiety alive.

Fundamentally, Dr. Hendriksen asserts, social anxiety is a form of overthinking. We all have an Inner Critic, she says; we need that critic. People who lack such self-criticism generally lack restraint necessary to function in society. But for people with social anxiety, that inner critic goes into full meltdown mode, second-guessing everything and rushing headlong into the worst-case scenario. Because we cannot stop thinking, we think ourselves into virtual paralysis.

Hendriksen’s solution begins in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This practice assumes our thoughts control our feelings, and by changing our thoughts, we can overcome maladaptive feelings—like, say, the feeling that everyone’s busy judging us for missteps we haven’t made yet. Most people simply don’t realize the connection between thoughts and feelings, or if they do, they don’t know how to change. We simply aren’t conscious of our own abilities.

Ellen Hendriksen, Ph.D.

Solving social anxiety begins with two steps, which Hendriksen calls Replace and Embrace. When we begin the death spiral of overthinking, she provides a handful of questions to replace faulty thinking. One of those questions is “What’s the worst that can happen?” She knows, of course, that we’ve already anticipated the worst, and are dwelling on it. But she follows that with “How likely is that?” Oh. Shazam.

Embrace is even better. It involves becoming aware of our thinking, separating helpful from unhelpful thoughts, and cultivating the superior. Like a teacher, we can choose to emphasize growth and improvement, or we can punish weakness and make momentary lapses into personal judgements. We know, with others, to do the former; but with ourselves we usually do the latter. If, instead, we embrace and cultivate ourselves, we learn healthier thoughts.

There’s your most important points. Hendriksen obviously explains them better, in terms patients can understand, and with sufficient detail to prevent our natural desire to rationalize ourselves back into our former habits. But like the best self-help authors, Hendriksen positions her most important points at the beginning. Everything after that is fine-tuning, which, admit it, we all need. Because with only broad strokes, the roots of anxiety still survive.

For instance, left to ourselves, most social anxiety sufferers would practice Replace and Embrace in our heads indefinitely, refusing to step out until we’ve already mastered the concepts. Which we never will. In theology, we call this the perfect as the enemy of the good. Instead, we must venture into the world, anxiety and all, and permit ourselves to fail, to practice self-confidence. We can engineer low-risk scenarios for this.

Hendriksen calls this Exposure Therapy. By exposing ourselves to circumstances that trigger our anxieties, and remaining conscious of our thought processes, we can learn to identify thinking that undermines us, and reroute it. But we can only perform this mental reprogramming by getting outside the theoretical realm. We won’t teach ourselves out of social anxiety in our living rooms; we must get into the field we fear, and move among people.

Notice the action emphasis. Hendriksen doesn’t advocate lying on the analytical couch (or sitting in your favorite reading chair) and ruminating through the details. We beat anxiety by doing. In that spirit, she includes exercises we can begin, right now, to identify our thoughts, fears, and how one transforms into the other. Feel free to write in the book, or make photocopies or Word documents to write your insights longhand.

The Internet Age has allowed social anxiety sufferers to realize we’re never alone in our fears. It’s given us opportunities to interact without judgement. But eventually, we get jobs, walk dogs, court spouses. We have to leave the house. Dr. Hendriksen provides practical, active ways to confront our anxiety. Which means, ultimately, finding mastery over ourselves.