Recovery from Social Anxiety and Related Conditions

Robert F Mullen
Director/ReChanneling

For each new subscriber, ReChanneling donates $25 for workshop scholarships.

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The distinction between social anxiety and social anxiety disorder is in severity. We are not all affected by the same symptoms or relentlessness. The characteristics and traits are equivalent. These conditions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior. While comorbidities dramatically benefit, the recovery methods identified are for social anxiety, social phobia, and social anxiety disorder, and reference to one includes the others.

Positive Personal Affirmations

Excerpts from our upcoming book, A Tough Love, Common Sense Approach to Recovery from Social Anxiety, currently in final editing.

The positive thinker sees the invisible,
feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.
– Winston Churchill

This chapter is dedicated to our second recovery objective: to produce rapid, concentrated positive stimulation that offsets the abundance of negative information in our brain’s metabolism. One of the most potent yet often overlooked methods to achieve this transformation is through the use of positive personal affirmations (PPAs). These affirmations have the power to bring about significant and positive changes in our mental landscape.

Our Resistance

Our underestimation of the power of PPAs is largely due to a lack of understanding of the science behind them. Many clients are deterred by misconceptions and new-age associations, which can be overcome by a deeper understanding of the psychological and neurological principles at play.

Positive personal affirmations are self-actualizing tools that counter our negative thoughts and self-appraisals, stimulating the brain regions involved in emotional processing and realignment. PPAs help us focus on goals, challenge negative, self-defeating beliefs, and reprogram our subconscious mind.

PPAs are self-affirming statements that we repeat to ourselves to describe what and who we want to be.

While most refer to PPAs as simply ‘personal affirmations,’ the emphasis on positive helps counter social anxiety’s predictable negative trajectory and adverse self-appraisal.

While the practice of PPAs may seem deceptively simple, our social anxiety often leads us to question even the most reasonable concepts. However, it’s important to remember that the efficacy of PPAs is not determined by their complexity, but by their consistent application.

Opposing new ideas is a natural physiological reaction. Our brain’s inertia senses and repels change, and our basal ganglia resist modifying our behavior patterns. Thus, habits like smoking or gambling are hard to break, and new undertakings like recovery or a new diet are challenging to maintain.

Additionally, we all have a negativity bias that encourages distrust and favors inaction. Like most humans, we are cognitively more receptive to adverse events than to positive ones.

It’s crucial to understand that the effectiveness of PPAs is not just a matter of belief or opinion. It is backed by scientific research, providing concrete evidence of their validity and potential to bring about positive change.

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)         

The Science

Our neural network is a biological system of interconnected brain neurons that screens data. Our brain’s metabolism involves the complex chemical and electrical processes that influence and alter our neural circuitry. Positive neurological stimulation changes the polarity of our neural network from toxic to healthy.

Every human brain has roughly 200 billion neurons that relay electrical signals. Neural stimuli are sensory, i.e., sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. They are mental in the forms of memory, intellect, and intuition; physical in our somatic and physiological reactions; and emotional through images, words, experiences, and so on. 

Proactive neuroplasticity helps reshape our neural network. By inputting short, self-affirming, and self-motivating statements as positive, personal affirmations, we influence our brain’s circuitry. The deliberate repetitive neural input (DRNI) of information not only restructures our neural network but also fosters new mindsets and abilities.

Neuroplasticity is not just a theoretical idea but a scientifically proven tool for changing our thoughts and actions. We accelerate and enhance learning (and unlearning) by intentionally guiding our brains to rewire their neural pathways. This process enables us to replace unhelpful motivations and maladaptive behaviors with more productive ones. 

Repeating self-motivating statements produces all the benefits of proactive neuroplasticity, including long-term potentiation, increased nerve impulse strength along connecting axons, higher levels of BDNF, and abundant positive neural reciprocation.

Additionally, PPAs decrease the influx of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones while triggering the release of hormones that produce cognitive viability and productivity.

Information Must Register

Neural information is registered stimuli, i.e., detected (noticed) and recorded. Most stimuli do not register. They are nugatory. Registered information can be positive, negative, or neutral.

When we register information, it activates receptor neurons, which in turn stimulate presynaptic neurons. These neurons then relay the information to postsynaptic neurons, triggering a neural chain reaction involving billions of connected neurons.

Every receipt of registered information engages a receptor neuron to fire. Each firing reshapes and strengthens the axon connections—the pathways neurons use to communicate. The more often they fire, the more neurons are affected, leading to multiple connections between receptor, sensory, and relay neurons, which in turn attract additional neurons.

Powered by repetition, this process accelerates learning by causing neural circuits to intricately form connections, reinforcing and consolidating the neural pathways responsible for processing information. It highlights our ability to shape our learning, productivity, and growth.

Accentuating the Positive

Neurons don’t act by themselves but through circuits that strengthen or weaken their connections based on electrical activity. When multiple neurons wire together, they heighten the activity of the axon pathway. Synaptic connections strengthen when two or more neurons are activated simultaneously.

The repeated and consistent stimulation of postsynaptic (relay) cells, which are the cells that receive signals from the presynaptic cells, increases learning efficiency. As neurons multiply, they amplify the energy carried by information. Energy refers to the size, amount, or degree of transfer during this process.

Neural circuits operate like muscles. The more repetitions, the stronger the connections. Repeated firings enhance and solidify the pathways between neurons, increasing the activity along the axon pathways.

By consciously choosing to input new information, we not only prompt our neural network to restructure but also strengthen and realign neural circuits. This confirms our significant role in shaping our emotional well-being and quality of life by proactively controlling the content of the information we input.

When multiple neurons fire repeatedly, they activate ‘long-term potentiation’, a scientific term that simply means the strengthening of connections between neurons over time. This process leads to higher levels of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which supports the survival and growth of healthy neurons.

Constructing Our Information

Driven by our intentions and the content of our information, this process enables us to determine the viability of the information.

To reiterate, our brain only registers information that it detects or notices. Most signals or stimuli we encounter are insignificant, meaning we do not detect them. If our brain does not register information, our receptor neurons remain unstimulated, and the information is inviable.

Changing our habits, removing ourselves from hostile environments, and breaking patterns that hinder our optimal functioning can be difficult. Our deliberate, repetitive neural input (DRNI) of information refers to the intentional and consistent exposure to specific types of information that empowers us to take responsibility for our emotional well-being and quality of life by proactively controlling the content of the information we input.

Since our conscious brain ostensibly processes about 10 bits of data per second of the two billion bits that surround our sensory systems, inputting carefully crafted and relevant information to ensure its noticeability is crucial.  

The Most Effective PPAs

The best PPAs are deliberate and tailored to our objectives. Are we confronting the negative thoughts and behaviors associated with our social anxiety? Are we reinforcing the character strengths and virtues that bolster recovery and transformation? And are we concentrating on a specific challenge? What is our ultimate aim, i.e., the personal milestone we aspire to reach? These are the questions that guide the creation of effective PPAs. 

By setting clear, specific goals, we significantly enhance the quality of information that supports our desired outcomes. Each deliberate neural input alerts millions of neurons, accelerating and consolidating neural restructuring to offset the abundance of negative information in our brain’s metabolism. This focus on clear goals keeps us on track and enhances our progress.

How can affirmative statements or activities counteract years of negative self-assessment? The transformative power of PPAs is immeasurable. We witness the abundant positive neural reciprocation. We observe the increased activity in the self-processing systems of the cortex. We’re aware of the other scientific benefits of proactive neuroplasticity. We know it works because we see and experience the transformation.

Space is Limited
For Information

“It is one of the best investments I have made in myself, and I will
continue to improve and benefit from it for the rest of my life.” – Nick P.

Criteria

The most authentic and compelling PPAs are constructed using the following seven criteria. 

Rational: A primary objective in recovery is to challenge our negative self-appraisals, which arise from core and intermediate beliefs shaped by childhood experiences and our current condition. These beliefs often manifest as automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) that are generally illogical and self-destructive. To counter them, we need to devise a rational response. For instance, if our ANT reflects a fear of ridicule related to social anxiety disorder (SAD), a possible rebuttal could be an affirmation that our opinions and contributions are as valuable as anyone else’s. This rational response enables us to take control of our thoughts and beliefs.

Reasonable: Being sensible in setting achievable expectations is a key to success. Unreasonable means we lack reason, a characteristic of insanity. We can either exercise sound judgment or be misled by cognitive biases. Rejecting our groundless thoughts and behaviors through reasonable and sound responses is necessary. For example, claiming, ‘I will publish my first novel,’ is unreasonable if we choose to remain illiterate. Setting reasonable and achievable expectations creates more realistic and manageable paths to success.

Unconditional: Our commitment to the content of our affirmations must be unwavering. Placing limitations on our commitment by using words like ‘maybe’ and ‘ might’ weakens our resolve. ‘Maybe I will start my diet’ is not a firm commitment. Conditional undertakings originate in doubt and manifest in avoidance. Qualifying or conditional words or statements provide an excuse to procrastinate, obfuscate, and justify our failures. (‘I might have won if only …’) 

Positive. When crafting our affirmations, we must avoid negative words. Instead of saying, ‘I will not be afraid,’ a more empowering statement could be, ‘I will be courageous.’ The use of positive language has the remarkable ability to uplift our spirits and foster an optimistic outlook.

Goal-focused: Knowing our destination is essential; otherwise, our path will be unfocused and aimless. The content of our information should concentrate on alleviating our deficits by recognizing our assets. If we avoid confrontation, an effective PPA would be ‘I will challenge my fears.’

First-Person Present or Future Tense: Recovery is a here-and-now process. Although it leaves its fingerprints on the future, the past is immutable. We have no control over it beyond our response to it. Recovery focuses on the present and its impact on the future.

Our affirmations should be timely and self-affirming, such as ‘I am viable,’ and ‘I have the willpower to succeed.’ Future-oriented affirmations, like ‘I will succeed,’ are equally effective.

Concise: Brief and clearly expressed PPAs are potent and effective. Additionally, they are easily memorized, which is essential as our PPAs evolve and adapt to the momentum of our recovery.

The ongoing self-appraisal of PPAs helps us focus on our goals, challenge negative, self-defeating beliefs, and reprogram our subconscious minds. Over time, we can replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones. PPAs rebuild self-esteem and empower us by teaching us to be more mindful of our character strengths, virtues, and attributes.

Repetition Ennui

Repeating PPAs is not a complex operation, but a manageable and straightforward process.

Notwithstanding, I have yet to work with a client who enjoys the daily repetitive process any more than the recalcitrant teenager likes cleaning their room. Many clients cite the weariness and boredom of repetition as their excuse for their laxness in practicing their PPAs.

Learning is dependent on repetition. It strengthens neural connectivity by consolidating our neural pathways. Long-term potentiation enhances receptivity and memory, as do the neurotransmissions of productive chemical hormones. This underscores the importance of regular PPA practice for significant mental health benefits.

The recommended process is to repeat aloud three self-motivating statements five times, three times a day (or all at once if you prefer), generating forty-five cellular chain reactions. The practice takes three to five minutes out of our day.

Repeating the same mantras multiple times daily may seem mind-numbing and frustrating. Nevertheless, it is a small investment of time for significant mental health benefits.

Many experts recommend we repeat our PPAs in front of a mirror. However, social anxiety generates irrational perceptions of unattractiveness and undesirability, which can devalue the mirror routine, so we perform our PPAs as a verbal/mental exercise. 

Each positive neural input impacts millions of neurons as they restructure your neural network to a form conducive to a positive self-image. It decreases the fear and anxiety hormones, including cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine, as our brain transmits GABA for relaxation, dopamine for pleasure and motivation, endorphins for euphoria, serotonin for a sense of well-being, acetylcholine to facilitate learning, glutamate that supports memory, and noradrenaline for concentration.

The Power of Suggestion

In addition to the benefits of PPAs already enumerated, there is the power of suggestion, a potent force that triggers positive changes in our thoughts and behaviors. This power is deeply rooted in psychology and is attributed to our ‘response expectancies,’ or anticipations of a positive response. These expectations, which we often overlook, play a significant role in the power of suggestion, shaping our reactions and behaviors.

Think of PPAs as transformative tools, like self-fulfilling prophecies, that have the power to restructure our neural network. By intentionally repeating PPAs, we can harness focused neural stimulation to counteract the current abundance of negative information in our brain’s metabolism.

Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series

INDIVIDUAL RECOVERY. The symptoms of social anxiety make it challenging for some to participate in a collective workshop. Dr. Mullen works one-on-one with a select group of individuals uneasy in a group setting. ReChanneling offers scholarships to accommodate the costs. What is absent in group activities is provided in our monthly, no-cost Graduate Recovery Group. In this supportive community, graduates interact with others who have completed the program.  Contact ‘rmullenphd@gmail.com’.

Committing to recovery is one of the hardest things you will ever do.
It takes enormous courage and the realization that you are of value,
consequential, and deserving of happiness.