Destroying Comfort Zones (Including AA)

[Richard]

Since my first few posts on GirlsChase - the ones where I was an absolute beginner with no social calibration at all, I've had a mentor on these boards. Sadly, he no longer posts and is happy in his relationship, but I still keep in frequent contact with him. I used to suffer from approach anxiety horribly, and general social anxiety: Both of these are states, and he understood (like I currently do) that you control your state.

I probably know the most psychology and neurology on these boards with the exception of Drexel (possibly), and I'd like to share a few things with everybody. These findings are not my own, I do not take credit for them, but I do highly recommend these exercises to anybody with comfort zone problems or social anxiety.

Now, earlier in this post I said that you control your state. Three things contribute to your state, but the one you have complete control of and is easiest and fastest to manipulate is your physiology: Tapping into your psychobiological loop. Your mind and body are directly connected to one another and have direct influence on one another.

You can often determine somebody's mood from the way there body is positioned because of this.

Anyway, the way to get over comfort zones is through a simplified version of exposure therapy also known as comfort zone challenges. What happens with social anxiety is your sympathetic nervous system kicks into overdrive and focuses all of your energy on "survival" because it tells your brain/body that you're in danger. Yes, approaching a hot chick is the same as a car crash or shark attack to your brain/body.

So, the thing to do is expose yourself to stimuli that cause you to feel anxiety until your brain and body realize that the stimuli is not a danger to you.

So, what my mentor had me do to combat social and approach anxiety was lay down in crowded or high traffic areas of people. At first, your anxiety and tension rises but in the span of 30 seconds you adjust and your tension dissipates. Do this enough times and your body starts to realize that it's in no danger and then your anxiety is either gone completely, or negligible.

So, I would lay down in the middle of the college cafeteria. Or lay down in Downtown Chicago. This works for all comfort zones and social anxiety. This works and it's much easier than approaching a hot chick to start with. Try it out fellas, report back, and post pictures if you'd like; I've got a couple pics of myself laying down on the sidewalk in Chicago.

-Richard

 

[mindful]

Interesting. I'd like to see that pic haha.

 

[ray_zorse]

Another thing to keep in mind is that social anxiety is somewhat about following society's rules and your feelings that bad things will happen if you don't (in fact the worst that could happen usually is you get told off by someone)... which is another reason why lying on the sidewalk in a busy street is good, because it emphasizes to you that there are actually no consequences for breaking society's rules. Sasha Daygame has a lot of material about this, apparently on their bootcamps they have their guys break society's rules on purpose to see what happens... apparently there was a dude who was going by their written material and went out to destroy his social fear by going into a McDonald's yelling loudly about something (I forget what), ordering his food and then standing on the table to eat it. They asked him to come down and he said "Nooo! The floor is dirty I'm not touching it", the manager came out and so on, and he just continued acting the part of crazy germophobe, no consequences at all. Also saw a post by radeng recently when he describes going into a busy nightclub and yelling "WHoOOo!!!" to get warmed up. Similar thing. I must say that I haven't tried these things exactly, although one thing I do is to wear makeup in public and this usually goes very well.
Ray

 

[Smurf]

That sounds interesting. Similar to opening the first set with the intention of getting blown out

Jake

 

[TheChased]

I have read a lot about psychology and watched quite a bit TEDx on these kind of things actually. And what I have found out is that your body is very well connected to your mind. So lets say you're sitting at a party and you only know one friend or two. You really want to talk to other people, but you get that feeling you hate.. (I don't know about you, but I don't want to lay on the floor in this situation.) What you should do is change how you sit, you should sit in a relaxed position. Lean back, chill out with your legs, stretch one out under the table maybe, make your self a little bigger by placing your hand on the sofa back. This is just tips on how to you can sit to look relaxed. After a while, your mind will respond to your body.
I'm not really a shy guy or get nervous in social situation anymore, but last week I went to a party where I knew no one. There was probably 15 people there and every eye was on me when I came through the door. I introduced my self to some of them and sat down with them. Suddenly I got that nervous feeling, it was really weird for me. Couldn't have a normal conversation with the two hot girls I sat between.. And one of them was really fucking hot. (It's only a feeling I thought, so stupid..) So I really payed attention to my body and how I sat. I leaned back, tried to look as relaxed and laid back as I could, but at the same time cool. After about 15minutes I was on fire, cracked a joke or two and got everyone to laugh. The night went on to be a really fun time, and the extremely hot girl sent me a friend request on facebook the next day. And made two cute girls kiss me at the same time before I left the party. This would not have happened if I hadn't got my shit together!

Note: I would probably stand if I could, to not be nervous, it works better. But couldn't because everyone was sitting in a circle around a table, would be to weird.

Another thing, lets say you're going to a job interview, you feel nervous again. Make yourself big, do that winner pose with your arms in the air. Like a sprinter who won the Olympics, or a football player(soccer) scoring a goal. This works wonders! I did this when I sat alone in a room preparing for my oral exam in physics. I had 30 minutes to write down what I needed to get through the exam. I had only practiced and read for the exam in three days prior to the exam. The first three minutes I couldn't get down shit on the paper, I forgot really easy stuff! So I knew what I had to do. I stood up, put my arms in the air and pretended there was people chairing me on while I walked around for like 2-4 minutes. Sat down again and stuff started to come down on the paper. After the time was up, one of my examiners came in and introduced himself and said it was time. I walked in and had my exam. When I was done, I waited like 2 minutes and was told to come in again. Fuck yeah! I got a B, so I was happy as hell. Other people in my class who had prepared a lot more than me got an C or worse. Only two other guys who got B's, and this was their second time taking the exam.

So really pay attention to how you sit or stand if you feel nervous. The body and mind is connected, so when you walk down that street talking to girls. Pay attention to how you walk. What I'm saying is that it's more positive reasons than looking good when having that good posture. Walk like James Bond, feel like James Bond

-TC

 

[Sophisticated Gent]

Man I could have used this today. I went to scope out a new hunting ground, a local mall. There were not too many people there and only one hottie. She was sitting on a small bench just room for two. I thought about approaching but I chicken out. I needed some confidence. I got to keep trying.