James Williams

Conversation is give and take, where everyone learns and grows together.

not moving forward will make you a stagnant witness that remains in one place while the rest of the world changes and evolves

While there are medications available to treat social anxiety, they are only meant to be temporary solutions, and sometimes there is not a good fit between you and the medication (meaning, it doesn’t work), or the side effects are worse than the ailment the medication is treating

Social anxiety is the fear of being judged in a negative way by others, while shyness is a feeling of being awkward or tense around others.

Shyness is actually considered a character trait.

Shy people tend to get past their social concerns once they become more familiar with their surroundings.

Biologically speaking, social anxiety was necessary for prehistoric days when living outside of a tribe meant essentially, death. In the civilizations where everyone contributed their skills and were a part of a tribe’s culture for hunting, gathering, and homesteading, being “strange” or “too quiet” meant that a person was often avoided or even cast out of a tribe. Being conscious of one’s thoughts, actions, and words were important in keeping one’s tribe.

The feelings we get of anxiety or shyness in new or stressful situations is set off by what’s called the “fight or flight” response - the intuitive reaction your mind automatically engages when you are faced with scary situations.

These are not feelings that you can just force down. It’s something that you have to work on to retrain your brain to recognize the anxious signals and head off the automatic fear response.

There are also cases of a chemical imbalance in the brain. The chemical in the brain called, serotonin, manages the regulation of moods and emotional reaction. In cases of social anxiety, the production of serotonin in the brain has been found to be either dampened or grossly underproduced. This causes the irrational feelings of nervousness and fear, as well as making it difficult to come out of those feelings without conscious effort