Relieving Social Anxiety by Remembering the Dream

Yesterday I obsessed over something I said that was really stupid. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it and then every time I did think about it, a huge pang of guilt and embarrassment washed over me. I think this obsessive thinking is an old remnant from having social anxiety. Growing up I couldn’t stop obsessing over the most minuscule thing in an overly self conscious way. Did I have a little bit more eye shadow on one eye than the other? Did my shirt look stupid being tucked in? Were people looking at me because of something weird I did? But most of all, I was self conscious of the things I said, how I expressed myself verbally. And I felt like everything that came out of my mouth was the most stupid thing ever. And every single time I thought a self conscious thought, an overwhelming sense of guilt, shame and embarrassment accompanied it. You would think I did something horrendous! These obsessions did not last just a moment, but days or weeks and sometimes even months.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me, and nobody knew this was going on. These thoughts became so painful that the only way I knew how to get rid of them was to try to forget as much as possible. A thought would come up and then I’d force myself to forget the past and focus on something else. Today as an adult, I have a horrible memory. But I’m not so sure it is because of trying to forget as a child because my brother has a really bad memory too, so maybe it’s genetic. Who knows?

This morning I remembered that I didn’t have to feel anything about what I said. In fact, I was probably making it out to be a lot more than it really was. But even if I wasn’t, even if I had said the stupidest thing in the world, it doesn’t matter. We all have the choice to remember that it doesn’t matter. Besides, other people have the choice to be patient, forgiving and nonjudgmental with us when we do stupid things. Just as we do with them. But when it all comes down to it, this is all a dream anyway. No, I haven’t experienced life as a dream by having that whole awakening experience thing happen. However, I can know conceptually that nothing that happens here really matters. Knowing this helps me to let things go, to laugh it off and not take things so seriously.

We live. We do stupid things. And then we die. That’s it. And nothing that ever happened while we were alive will matter when we’re dead anyway. Nothing that ever happened in the past few hundred years will matter a trillion years from now. It’s all so very insignificant, especially if you remember that it is only just a dream in the first place.