How to Deal with Social Anxiety at Holiday Parties
Your boss just sent out the annual invite for the office holiday party and you feel a wave of pure dread sink into your gut. You know it’s best for your reputation to show face, but everything in you hates the small talk and more than that, the internal dialogue that tells you you’re awkward, uninteresting, and not worth their time.
Some resort to drinking, to take the edge off and quiet their insecure thoughts. Others decide to show up, occupy themselves at the dessert table, wave to a few folks they know well, and then leave with a clever excuse, like the babysitter called and you need to rush home.
If there were only a way to feel confident and relaxed.
Here are three suggestions for how to deal with social anxiety at your next obligatory holiday party.
First, shift your thinking
At the core of social anxiety is a fear of not being safe in the presence of another. As you think about being at that holiday party, what negative thoughts about you arise. Perhaps some of these resonate:
I’m not wanted
I’m not interesting
I have nothing meaningful to say
I’m not a funny person
They think I’m awkward
They don’t think I’m cool
They don’t want to talk with me
I’m not important or significant
Often, these negative messages come from a place of wounding in earlier life experiences, perhaps dating all the way back to childhood. Maybe your parent seemed uninterested in you. Maybe you didn’t have many friends growing up, or worse, you had friends that betrayed you, bullied you, or otherwise made you feel unwanted or not enough.
If we can trace our negative thoughts back to their origin story, we can find a renewed sense of compassion for how hard it is to put ourselves in the face of potential social rejection. A key to feeling confident in social setting is addressing those old wounds with trauma healing. You can find a guided meditation for this in my free guide here.
Trauma healing takes time, so if you’re in the midst of that and still have to go to a party you dread, consider shifting your negative thought to a more neutral or positive one. Here are some examples:
Even if you don’t yet fully believe the neutral or positive thought, allow yourself to practice thinking differently. You can take this to the next level by trying to find evidence from the past of where that neutral or positive thought has been true, and note that as evidence.
Second, have a mental rehearsal
Your second strategy for managing social anxiety is going to be imagining the future event going well. Our imaginations are powerful tools for creating change. Did you know that when you imagine swinging a baseball bat, the same neurons light up in your brain as would light up when you’re actually swinging a baseball bat? The realm of sports psychology knows this well. Top performers use visualization exercises to actually improve their performance. For you, a social outing probably feels like a performance. Follow these prompts to harness the power of your imagination:
Get into a comfortable, but alert posture - likely sitting up with your feet flat on the ground, hands resting on your thighs
Allow your eyes to close or take a soft gaze at the floor
Take three deep breaths
Ask yourself: What do I want to feel about myself at the event?
I’m calm and confident
I am desirable
I don’t need to impress anyone, I’m already enough as I am
My presence matters
In your mind’s eye, picture the scene of the event
Like a movie, imagine playing the event from start to finish as if you felt your positive belief was true
Notice how you would feel
Notice what you would be doing
Notice what you would be thinking
Notice how you would handle challenges well
When you get to the end of the scene, take a deep breath
If this is difficult for you to do, recall a past situation in which you did feel your positive belief and think about that experience first, and then imagine the future situation.
This exercise is giving your brain a future template for how to handle the situation well. It it said that when we dream, our brain is naturally engaging in this process. Though our dreams are often bizarre and unrealistic, the themes we are processing in our dreams are often relevant. It’s as if with dreaming our brain is posing the question: How would I handle this future situation?
Third, relax your body
Social anxiety is not a choice - it’s our body’s programming based on past experiences. In social setting, some of us are triggered to feel afraid and unsure or insecure. Adjusting your thoughts and mentally rehearsing the situation are great tools to begin to help your brain think differently about yourself and social situations. However, you might still feel anxious when you show up. When you’re at the event, focus on relaxing your body - you can’t be stressed in a relaxed body. Here are some strategies for helping your body to feel calm:
Slow deep breaths, focusing on making the exhale longer than the inhale
Grounding by pressing your toes into your shoes and feeling connected to the ground
Grounding by holding a cold drink and noticing the temperature
Soothing touch by holding your own hand or rubbing your arm
Relax your muscles by scanning from the top of your head all the way down to your toes
Hold a half-smile to allow your body to communicate to your mind the emotion you want to feel
Additional considerations for relaxing your body include avoiding caffeine the day of the event, as well as alcohol. While alcohol temporarily suppresses our inhibitions, in the long run, you’re perpetuating the belief that you’re not enough on your own and need alcohol to be liked. Additionally, folks often experience heightened anxiety a day after drinking which is not ideal if you struggle with overanalyzing yourself the day after social events. Be sure to hydrate and eat well that day. You might not feel hungry, but when you’re not eating, your body has to produce cortisol (the stress hormone) for energy - yikes!
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For those dealing with this often hidden pain, you deserve to feel confident, calm, desired, and worthy. You likely don’t feel that way because your experiences taught you otherwise. Change is possible! If you’re ready to address social anxiety with a trauma-informed therapist in Phoenix, AZ, reach out for a free intro call to see if we’re a good fit.
