Busy, Yet Pretty - The Perfect Guide To Overcome Social Anxiety & Navigate Uncomfortable Situations

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Social anxiety is VERY common and you are NOT alone. In this episode, Jadyn dives into how you can navigate uncomfortable social situations and social anxiety, as well as the perfect tools to have to better improve your anxiety. Tune into this episode with a S'mores matcha latte, as you listen to how to become a more confident YOU. Become your happiest version of you, with me!! : - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠7AM MORNING ROUTINE | hot pilates, healthy breakfast & working from home⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jadyn's Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Busy, Yet Pretty Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Busy, Yet Pretty Groupchat ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Tiktok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@Fairyjadyn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - My Amazon Storefront: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jadyn's Storefront⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Outfit Details: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My Closet⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   - focus on growing your business ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Shopify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello, my love. Welcome to the Busy Yet Pretty Podcast. I'm your host, Jaden Haley. I'm very excited about today's episode because this has been a highly requested episode, especially after I posted my, a real I posted about like bullying and stuff. So today's episode is going to be how to overcome social anxiety and navigating uncomfortable conversations and situations, which let's be real. We all are in uncomfortable situations and. conversations and have sometimes social anxiety. And it's an important topic to talk about because I feel like not many people talk about this. And we all in one point in our life, most likely have felt this way. And maybe it's not you directly feeling it now or you have it in the past. But if you ever feel kind of uncomfortable or not, you know, having the confidence you need to enter a situation,

this is the perfect episode to get that confidence, get that mindset and knowing how to navigate the uncomfortable social anxiety that you may be going through. But before we get into this episode, let's get into our weekly review. So this week, I have been having a summer reset. And I mean like a summer reset. I'm like getting rid of all like winter coats, putting them into storage and just getting my place ready for the summer for me to enjoy my environment. Because let me remind you that your home is your environment.

And if you don't make it a place that you want to be, you're not going to like it. you want to make your environment and that also includes the people who you surround yourself with. You want your environment to be a place that you love and you're happy with or you'll never be happy. Another thing is I have been really trying to dial in on personal enjoyment. So doing things that truly make me happy, that being books, trying to organize my place, making my matcha, just doing things that truly make me happy that have nothing to do with work. and it's sometimes hard to separate our career goals and personal goals, and that's something I'm really trying to dial in on this summer.

On top of the reorganizing my place, also my lease ends in one month, so I'm trying to decide if I'm going to renew my lease or go somewhere else or move somewhere else. I don't know. I definitely in the next year or so can see myself moving to a different state, just because I love to just experience new things and try something new. but we will see where the future takes us. Now on to my current obsession. My current obsession at the moment is smores matcha.

Like there is no better matcha. Like the best macho latte ever and you can make it at home is a smores matcha latte. I posted a video on it. If you go to Instagram or TikTok, you'll see it. But it is literally the best macha latte you will ever make. It's so divine. I've had it for a month straight every day. It's that good.

Now, another crab session right now is beeswax candles. I think beeswax candles with, like, essential oils as fragrances, are one of the, one of the healthiest candles you can light in your home because no fragrance. I think when it's essential oils, it's so much better than synthetic fragrances. Also, with the wax from the candle, it's beeswax. And beeswax actually purifies the air, and it just makes it more clear. cleaner, fresher air. That said, I most definitely still use lots of fragrance and candles, but I do love throughout the day just to have the beeswax candle going as well because I feel

like it's like a little healthier. Now on to another current obsession right now, which is my, okay, I don't know how to explain it very well, but it's like lettuce meat cups. They are basically romaine lettuce with lunch meat and like a healthier lunch meat and mustard and cheese. I think it's so good. I love it and it's just my current obsession for lunch. Now and to my goal of the week. My goal of the week is to declutter even more. I'm really just trying to like purge through my home and get rid of as much as I can and donating things and just giving things I don't need to family, friends and I'm going to do lots of giveaway soon for beauty products by the way. I have so much extra products that I really want to do some giveaways. So make sure to stay tuned.

over Instagram because I definitely will host them soon. Another goal to week right now is to try to do some prevention before the problem techniques. What I mean by that is we have a problem such as, let's say social anxiety, okay? That's your quote problem. So there's things that you can do that are like prevention to help prevent that problem from occurring. And that's me with like being overwhelmed. I get overwhelmed and stressed very easily and I'm trying to keep my stress down when it comes. to just the amount of stress I've been carrying lately in my occipital neurologia. So I'm trying to just really calm my stress. And for me, I'm trying to do a lot of prevention before the problem techniques,

and that's deep breathing exercises and just taking time for myself, journaling. Those are all things to do prevention before the problem. So that's something I'm trying to do. And lastly, this week is use less heat on my hair. this is probably not going to be a successful goal of the week. Let's be real. I love a curling iron. I love a straightener when I want it. I love a heated tool, but I am trying to use just less heat on my hair in general. Now on two, the self-love question of the week. What is the simple joy that I often forget about? I love that question so much and I really recommend asking yourself that because sometimes things that make us so happy in life, like the simple

joys are right in front of us, but we look past it and we forget about it. So maybe that's you having your morning coffee. Even though you have that every day, take time, really enjoy it, and just be mindful while you're doing it. Be grateful that you have your morning coffee because someone out there doesn't get to have morning coffee. So be grateful for the simple joys that you have in your life. Now unto your affirmation of the week, I am confident in who I am as a person. I love the affirmation so much and I feel like it's very well fitting for this episode. Now into your challenge of the week, reflect on who you were a year ago at the start of summer and think about the growth you've had since then.

And let me specify something, growth does not mean how much more money you made or how much happier or healthier you are now because maybe that's not your case, but growth can also look like how much you've gone through this year or how much you've experienced, how much you learned, how much you endured this year. And that's something to really reflect on and think, what does growth look like for you? And what is the difference between you a year ago versus you now? Now on to the podcast review.

If you want to be featured on next week's episode, make sure to leave a podcast review over Apple Podcasts and leave a five-star rating over Spotify. This review says, I've been listening to your podcast for a few months now and it has become my favorite podcast. I love to listen to it anytime I'm trying to get my daily tasks done. It has helped me so, so much with my confidence and inspires me to become my best self.

Thank you so much. I love that review so much because how you just put it on in the background while doing your daily task, I think is so nice. And it almost feels like when you listen to something in the background, like a friend is there. And I just love to be all your guys's best friends because we are honestly just one big fun group, especially according to the broadcast channel over Instagram. We are just all one big friend group chat. I love it. Okay guys, now on to today's episode. Today's episode is how to overcome social anxiety and navigate uncomfortable conversations and situations. This is someone who in fact did have a social anxiety, extreme social anxiety. So I am saying this from firsthand experience. And let me just remind you something because I know

when you have social anxiety, it can feel so lonely, especially since the anxiety has to do with talking to others or being in social situations where you may not be comfortable telling people you have social anxiety. And that's okay. You don't have to open up to people about it, but let me tell you something. The fact that this was so unbelievably requested, I want you to know that hundreds of people requested this episode. And I have tens of thousands of people listening to this episode. And I want you to realize that you are not alone. What you feel like right now is not your life. It's not going to last forever.

It does not define you. You define yourself and how you hold yourself, how you treat yourself and how you feel about yourself. And right now, you may be feeling off. You may be feeling insecure, unmotivated, and lost, especially not knowing how to navigate situations, let alone be comfortable to talk to people. But let me tell you something that social anxiety is not you. you. It's something that's a part of you for right now, but it's not you. So we're going to talk about

how to navigate it better, how to look at things in a different perspective and change your mindset because let me remind you that social anxiety in any anxiety in general is rooted mentally. It really is. And that's something where I have really bad health anxiety. And when I feel like any sensation in my body where I'm like, oh, is this a heart attack? Is this, this, this, that? Everything's a what and it really does at the end of the day come down to my own mentality because when my mental check, when I'm mentally on track and I'm doing the things I need to do for my health and my self-care and my mental health, everything does feel a lot better. But even if you're doing everything perfectly right, you may still have some anxiety. And let me tell you, we are not all

the same. It's not anxiety is not one size fits all. But I can't tell you that you are not alone. And even like me, I had really bad social anxiety before. So this is something that many of us struggle with. I would say we at least once in our life have a phase where we struggle with this. And I just think it's important to talk about. But like I said, I am someone who struggled with severe social anxiety for many years as a teen and completely then created a new version of myself where I kid you not, now and like years ago even, since I've had no social anxiety for many, many years now.

But I'm saying I can confidently walk into a room of 80 businessmen in their 60s and confidently shake their hand, looking at them in the eye, and can confidently sell myself and sell whatever I need to sell to them. And even though I had this feeling now and I had this confidence now, I didn't once before. And I did not ever feel comfortable to do that, let alone my biggest social anxiety actually when I was a teen was scared of kids because many people get social anxiety either from a past experience that has happened to them like it could be caused by

something or maybe they just randomly throughout your life you got social anxiety but for me I got social anxiety from a caused experience that happened to me which was when I was bullied in sixth grade So when I had my experience with bullying and stuff, when I was thrown into lockers and, you know, the whole, literal, like out of movie type of bullying, I was extremely scared of kids then because when I was around so many of these kids that did this to me, I was so worried that all kids were like this. And that's what I thought. I thought, you know, no kids would be nice to me ever. So when I had no one nice to me at the school I was at, and when I had those experiences going on, and when I was removed and I did homeschool, it went from all to nothing, where I went from a lot of kids, all being mean to me,

extremely scared. And then when I was homeschooled, there was no kids and I was super sheltered. And that was where it went from all or nothing. And being that, like, strictly pulled away from kids, I just had this feeling that, you know what, all kids are like this. And I'm going to be bullied again if I go back to school. so I just never wanted to go back. I was so scared of it and I was scared to go to school again because I was scared of any kids.

I was very much on edge and on a fight or flight mode, which I think a lot of people feel with anxiety. I feel like you're always on edge or you're always on fight or flight. And a lot of times we just want to take the flight out. We don't want to take the fight. But this is the time for us to take a stand and take the fight and realize in order for us to improve and feel better, we have to take the fight. So as I said, social anxiety is very common. It's a common universal feeling that we all, you know, at some point in time have. And while there is no black and white answer to how to fix social anxiety or any anxiety in general, there are so many things you can independently do to alleviate the anxiety and tools you can have to feel more confident in your own skin when you're going through these social situations.

And let me remind you that this does not happen overnight. It can take years, but it can also only take weeks to see some improvement. And I honestly feel like results vary and depend on the effort that you put into taking these steps and switching your mindset. Starting off, I want you to realize, and this is why I tell everyone, is the world does not revolve around you. You need to begin to realize that the world does not revolve around you. I know it's the harsh truth, but it's true. Let me say it this way. When you're nervous to do a speech for work or school and you're so worried that you're going to mess up, what if people laugh?

Do you really think you're the only one thinking this worry right now? Do you really think you're the only one thinking, what if I mess the speech up? What if I mess up and don't know what to say? What if I forget my lines? Let me tell you something. Every single person in that room is thinking the exact same thing. you're worried about. While you're worried about what are they going to do tomorrow, are they going to laugh at me, they're worried about themselves. Everyone's looking out for themselves and everyone's

worried about their own self. Okay. So the next time you think, gosh, I'm so nervous to go to this birthday party of this of my friend's birthday party. She has a lot of people coming over. Do you really think that the birthday party revolves around you? No. Okay. Everyone is worried about their own self. They're not thinking about you. So even though you're thinking, what is everyone else thinking about me? They're thinking the same thing. They're thinking, what are you thinking about them? So try to just not worry about anyone else. As hard as that sounds and, you know, it's much easier said than done. You need to realize that people are only thinking about themselves. And actually, that can be quite comforting to know that because

when you're nervous, you're not wanting anyone to think about you. Because you don't want any, you don't want to be on anyone's mind and let me tell you you're not they're thinking the exact same thing they're worried what are you thinking about them when you're worried about any social situation in life or just worried in any social conversation anything having social anxiety you need to drop the what if we always tend to run to the what if what if things don't work out what if they laugh at me what if they think i'm stupid what if what if what if you need to do you need to do you need to do drop the what if and if you can't drop the what if then think what if it works out what if i wasted my time worrying for nothing what if it all goes as planned and what if i have a good time what if i enjoy my

time if you can't drop the what if make it into a positive because here's the thing worrying cannot prevent the outcome of any situation worry cannot protect you it can't make sure that things are going to turn out right, but what it can do is make you feel more nervous than you already are. So why put more stress onto you and more suffering onto you by worrying when the worry can't change the outcome? I can't be the only one who has this like dream item of theirs that they always see whether it's a bag, a sweater, a top and you're like, I just need that, but it's like sold out everywhere. That's me with this one vintage Duny and Burke bag. I literally was looking everywhere for it and then I somehow found one on a poshmark.

But not just one. I found multiple of them at such a good price. And I was like, wait, this is just too good to be true. So if you know me, you know I am a Poshmark girl. Poshmark is a marketplace where you can list and sell, as well as buy new items, vintage pieces, gently used, luxury pieces. They really just have it all. And I feel like there's no better time to go on Poshmark now.

Everyone's cleaning out their closet and listing good things. Get in bed, get cozy, and go on Poshmark. to add to your new spring wardrobe. New deals and sales are listed every day, so don't wait. Download the Poshmark app and use code busy when you sign up to get $10 off your first purchase. Or shop now at Pashmark.com slash busy and get $10 off your first purchase. That's P-O-S-H-M-A-R-K.com slash busy. I can't be the only one who has this like dream item of theirs that they always see,

whether it's a bag, a sweater, a top, and you're like, I just need that, but it's like sold out everywhere. That's me with this one, vintage Duny and Birk bag. I literally was looking everywhere for it and I somehow found one on a poshmark. But not just one. I found multiple of them at such a good price and I was like, wait, this is just too good to be true. So if you know me, you know I am a poshmark girl. Poshmark is a marketplace where you can list and sell as well as buy new items, vintage pieces, gently used, luxury pieces.

They really just have it all. And I feel like there's no better time to go on Poshmark now. Everyone's cleaning out their closet and listing good things. Get in bed, get cozy, and go in Pashmark to add to your new spring wardrobe. New deals and sales are listed every day, so don't wait. Download the Poshmark app and use Code Busy when you sign up to get $10 off your first purchase. Or shop now at Pashmark.com slash Busy and get $10 off your first purchase. That's P-O-S-H-M-A-R-K.com slash busy.

If you have been around for a while, you know the story with my podcast where I almost didn't start it, which is crazy to me because to think that I wouldn't have been where I am today if I didn't start, all the what ifs and doubts can just add up and be the one thing stopping you between you and getting the dream that you want. And let's say starting a business is you. And you want that dream business of yours. You have the idea, but all your what ifs and doubts can add up and feel so overwhelming. But one of the best things that's going to help you get through that roadblock of what ifs

is having help and assistance. That's why if you're thinking about starting a business, start it with Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all of e-commerce in the U.S. from household names like Jim Shark to Allo Yoga to brands just getting started. I love Shopify because it just helps in all aspects of your business, from product photography to marketing to managing orders. They really just cover it all. And if you get stuck in the process, don't worry. They have 24-7 customer support, which is so needed. So with that said, it's time you launch fast, perfect later. And it's time for you to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash

busy yet pretty. Go to shopify.com slash busy yet pretty. That's shopify.com slash busy yet pretty. When becoming the girl on your vision board, it is so important to have a set wellness routine. But it doesn't have to be a lot of time, whether you're traveling or just having a spring refresh, have something for your health that you can rely on. That's why I love AG1. AG1 is a daily health drink clinically shown to support your gut health and fill in common nutrient gaps. AG1 is so loved between me and my family. I drink it all the time, my mom, my dad, my brothers, my grandpa, like we all love AG1 here. Most importantly, because it's so easy, you can literally just pour it into water, shake it up, and you can.

you're done. And it just feels so good to know that your energy, your immune health, and your gut health is all being supported. I seriously could not have a spring refresh without it. It's literally my favorite right now. Go to drinkag1.com slash pretty to get an AG1 flavor sampler in a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 for free in your AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. That's $72 yours free. Only while supplies last. Go to drinkag1.com slash pretty. When it comes to people and Again, we're going back to people, this could be friends, family, peers, anyone. Any people in your life, I want you to know that people that you both love and hate, you have to take them off a pedestal.

So often our social anxiety is rooted in our lack of confidence and us putting people both that we love and we hate on a pedestal. And what I mean by that is we see ourselves at a base level. and then any person love or hate we see them way higher than us we see them as scarier than us we see them as more you know knowledgeable than us we see them as anything but at our level but what you need to do is either pull them down to your level okay or as what you actually should be doing is pull yourself up to their level put yourself on the pedestal with them if you're going to put someone that you love hate or anybody on a pedestal, you better be putting yourself up on that pedestal too.

Because let me remind you that nobody deserves more treatment or a better treatment than you. We all deserve the same treatment, love and respect that we give. If someone is rude, you don't need to give your time to them. You can be nice and be like, bye, thank you. You don't need to be in my life anymore. Doesn't matter if they're nice, rude, mean, loving, whoever it is, you have to stop putting people on a pedestal because that's only hindering you and your confidence. Why do we put people on a pedestal? Okay? Maybe they have a lot of money or maybe they are really pretty or maybe they look like they have everything they want in life. They're super happy. Maybe we put someone also on a pedestal who is extremely unhappy with themselves is mean to you and always makes fun of you. There's two

different people, two different types of people. You could be putting on a pedestal. But regardless of who it is, you are only perceiving them the way they're portraying themselves. Psychologically, you are seeing them the way they're trying to portray themselves. So you're going to perceive them in that way. What I mean by that is because this is what you're going to do and you can reflect the exact same method onto other people. When you walk into a room, if your shoulders are down and you're looking at your phone, you are setting yourself up to show I'm closed off and I'm not confident in myself.

But if you walk into a room with your shoulders back, head held high, eyes open, ready to greet and shake hands with anyone, you are outwardly showing and portraying to others that you were confident. So people aren't going to have doubts about that. They're not going to think twice about that. People don't recognize a confident person, okay? They recognize someone who's insecure. You stand out when you're insecure. Of course you stand out when you're confident, but I'm saying you're most likely in a room full of people.

You're going to notice when someone seems more insecure rather than someone who's more confident because you're just going to blend in when you look confident because you're not enclosing yourself in this invisible little bubble of yours. So even though it seems unrealistic of you holding your head held high, your shoulders back, and you smiling and greeting people, even though that may seem hard or confidently, speaking a speech, let me tell you something. People are going to treat you the way that you portray. If you portray that you are someone who is confident and someone who does not tolerate someone being disrespectful to you, I guarantee things are going to change for you. Because when I was

insecure and I was scared and had social anxiety back then when I was a teen, I welcomed people to be rude to me and to walk on me because I was insecure and literally I know what it feels like. I know what it feels like to feel so unbelievably scared and you just want to be in your room because you're just so scared of other people. You're awkward and you don't know what to do. You don't know what to say and you're overthinking everything. But when I graduated high school, I instantly was like, okay, those people at my school, they knew who I was.

They knew I was insecure. They knew I was unconfident. They knew I was not confident at all. And when I got out of school, I was like, I don't have any friends for anyone to know who I am. So anyone I meet from now on does not know this old version of me. They only know the version of me that I portray. So what I did was I created a brand new version of myself, which is what you need to do. Create a brand new version of yourself in your head, okay?

Even if you start acting this way to people who have treated you rude or people who you put on a pedestal, rude or nice, doesn't matter who it is, create this version of you for yourself and they can adapt to this new version of you. You're of course the same person. Don't lose the person you are, but creating this new version of you, which is like your mindset, is helping you. You're not doing this for anyone else but yourself. Something else when it comes to social anxiety and this is something that many people feel and do and I definitely have been one of them, but we often try to think we want to make the other other person comfortable. So maybe we're overthinking and think, oh, this person may be uncomfortable. I want to make them feel comfortable. I don't want this

to be awkward. So I'm just going to keep talking. And many times people can just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk to fill the void of silence because they don't want to be uncomfortable for the other person. But let me tell you, it's not your job. You don't need to fill silence in order to not make the other person feel uncomfortable. You can comfortably talk the way you want to, comfortably be yourself and don't think what is the other person thinking. Because you know what, if you guys aren't matching or getting along, whether this is a friend, a significant other, and the time is not being filled with talking, maybe they're not the right person and that's okay. But you can also sit in silence. And if they're not comfortable with that, that's okay. And they

don't need to be your friend. But it's not your job to think and make it. someone else comfortable. Once you reach a certain level of confidence, you can sometimes want to make other people comfortable. Like I truly, when I'm meeting someone or anything, and I can tell someone's a bit uncomfortable, I always do want to make that person feel comfortable in the way of, I want them to feel comfortable around me. I don't want them to feel they don't know how to act or what to say. I want them to be themselves. So I'll kind of show, I'll kind of like talk or show a way of like, not an imperfection, but just to show a really raw version of myself. So it makes them loosen up and them feel more comfortable.

But you don't have to go so above and beyond. We're thinking, gosh, am I making them comfortable enough? Am I making this person, you know, happy? Are they not going to want my friend? You be you and what's right for you will stay with you. If it's not, it will go. And if it leaves your life, it's because there's something better for you out there. As hard as it is trying to navigate social situations and social settings, I think it's really important to find peace and not needing to please.

This is kind of what I was saying about making other people comfortable. It often comes from being a people pleaser. There is a difference between being nice and being loving and appropriately providing and making someone comfortable than people pleasing. When you get to the people pleasing mindset, that often comes from you also not. putting yourself first. You're putting other people on a pedestal. Social anxiety really does come very heavy from not putting ourselves first and not looking at us as valuable as somebody else. When it comes to the what if scenarios in our head, we often visualize a lot of our what ifs and our situations of you'll visualize yourself messing up your speech or forgetting everything

about yourself at the job interview you're going to tomorrow. We often visualize these things. So if you're a big visualizer, when you begin to have these scary visualizations of things going wrong, rewrite them and reframe them in your head to be a better outcome. So instead of you messing up your speech, imagine and visualize you doing your speech perfectly, smiling at the end, and getting an A plus. Instead of messing up the job interview, having that visualization, think of you instead doing great at the job interview perfectly saying who you are, what you do, and them saying you've got the job, when can you start? Those are going to help better manifest and give less stress to you.

It's also in your head going to feel like, okay, case closed. I know the ending. It's done. And then it kind of closes that thought a bit to allow you to not overstress it when the time happens. And again, you can't change the outcome. Worrying never changes. the outcome, except it can make you more scared than you already are. Another thing is small talk. I know small talk people hate. I personally like small talk. I think it's great. It allows you to have the

human experience of meeting people and just never seeing them again. I think that's really an odd concept. But I also think it's kind of nice and kind of great to know some kind of like great to meet some people without having to know older life story and just hearing, okay, how's your day? So a good thing you can do to help improve your social anxiety is whenever you're in an Uber or see a cashier at a store or whatever it is, say hi, ask how their day is going. If you see someone at a coffee shop, you can even ask their name. I know it's really common to do that in LA. It may not be common where you're at, but people don't find it weird in L.A. Like, I will have people who, like, have pulled up a seat next to me and been like, okay, so tell me about yourself and tell me your

story. I'm like, hold on. What's your name first? Hold on. But it's nice when you get to know people without having to have an actual connection or relationship to them. So start talking to the cashier at the store. Stop looking at your phone at Trader Joe's when you need to pay and to check out. Start talking to the person. Talk to people. because that little talk is going to help build yourself esteem and your self-confidence to do more things where it's harder, like speeches or carry conversations to people you love or people you don't like. It really will help you build up that confidence. Another thing that I know is pretty common that people like is the forward method,

which is things that you can ask people. So sometimes we'll talk to people and we totally forget to ask or what to say. And a good rule of thumb is the forward. method. So it's F-O-R-D. So talk about family, occupation, recreation, and dreams. That really just hits all the markers and it's the perfect question to ask people. So you can ask about their family, occupation, what they like to do. So the recreation and dreams. And I think those are all great things to have in mind it in your back pocket. Something else that is definitely hard and it's a practice, but hold eye contact. And I know that can be very, very difficult. especially in the early stages of trying to heal your social anxiety,

I can look at any single person in the eye and not break eye contact while talking to them. And that's not to brag about it. I just, as someone who is very insecure and had bad social anxiety, that's something I take a lot of pride in. And if I can do it, you most definitely can. But that's something you can also work towards is try to look people in the eye when you shake their hands or try to look people in the eye when they're talking to them. and you can slowly start to do it longer and longer and soon enough you will not be able to break

eye contact and people are going to be like gosh why is this girl staring at me but no literally i'm telling you it shows confidence and it's really really good to display that confidence of course therapy is a great way to work on your social anxiety another thing is journaling script out the ideal version of how you want things to go, script out the person you want to become and your confidence. And lastly, put yourself out there in the way of doing and trying new things, experiences. Again, it doesn't have to be with friends or anyone. You can do things alone. And, you know, you even going to the store, talking to the cashier, that's an experience. You going on a picnic date with yourself. That's an experience. Do things to ultimately prompt that confidence within

yourself and that's going to portray and display on your social part of you and I promise you it will really help boost those parts of you when you take time for yourself independently. And lastly, before we end this episode, I really do want to leave you with some nice quotes on social anxiety that I've read and I just think these are so hopeful and motivating and something that you really need to remember when things get hard. You don't have to be fearless. Doing it afraid still counts. I love that so much and I think that really just ties perfectly into what I said at the beginning

of this episode where it's fight or flight and we're choosing the fight, not the flight. Another one is you don't have to fix yourself to be worthy of connection. I love that so much because of course what I'm saying, create this new version of you and create this best version of you. This is for yourself. You're not creating a version of you to fit the other person's ideal standards of you. What I mean by that is maybe the friends that you hang out with, they wish you were more outgoing. They wish you were like this.

They wish you wore this. And you're not trying to wear the things that they want you to wear or be the person they want you to be. You're becoming this new version for you of what you truly like. So that's what I love is you don't have to fix yourself to be worthy of connections because it's going to attract the right people to you when you're true to yourself. Another quote is, feel the fear and do it anyways. Okay. Lastly, I love this one. It says introverts and anxious souls often have the richest inner world.

You're not broken. You're just deep. I love that so much because I do believe that is true. Some of the most deep thinking people are some of the most anxious people are very deep thinking and very pure and rich of life. And they're just wanting to make sure everything goes the right way and things work out right. And as someone who's felt that before, I really do believe that's so true. just love that so much. Anyways, if you enjoy this episode, please share it with a friend or a family member or anyone you think may like this episode. And also share over your Instagram story and TikTok.

And do not forget to tag me. I always repost everything you guys tag me in. I love seeing content of you guys and how you listen to the show. Also, I always love to answer and read your guys' comments over Spotify. So if you're a Spotify listener, you can always go comment in the comment section. And I love when I see you guys commenting back and forth with each other about the episode. It makes me just so happy. But anyways, let me hear what helps you during anxious times in the comment section over Spotify.

I love you so much. And remember, healing is a process. The world is on your side. And I love you with all my heart. And do not forget to stay busy yet pretty.