Overcoming Social Anxiety: Unconventional Challenges and Transformation

Melinda overcame social anxiety through unconventional challenges, embracing curiosity and shifting her perspective, ultimately finding joy and connection.

### Overcoming Social Anxiety with Five Uncomfortable Challenges
* 😰 Melinda has struggled with social anxiety all her life, trying therapy, medication, and other methods **without success**.
* 💰 To help Melinda overcome her social anxiety, Mark created five **awkward and uncomfortable challenges** that embody the **five principles of overcoming social anxiety**.
* 🤝 The first principle is desensitization, which involves **getting outside, talking to strangers, and realizing that awkwardness won't kill you**.
* 🔎 The second principle is curiosity, shifting the focus away from oneself by being **curious about others and new activities**.
* 🎢 The third challenge involved confronting a **deeply painful childhood event** to rewire the association of strangers from **fear to fun**.
* 💬 The "**going first**" principle in social psychology was used for the fourth challenge, where Melinda had to **disclose personal experiences with strangers**.
* 🎤 The final challenge was to give a brief history of her anxiety in front of a room full of people, showcasing the **progress she had made in overcoming social anxiety**.

- [Mark] What would you do if someone offered you $10,000
to do whatever it takes to overcome your social anxiety? Could you do it? Would you even know where to start? I decided to find out. (intense music begins) Somewhere in this courtyard right now, there's somebody from Saskatoon, Canada. You need to find them and meet them. - Okay. - [Mark] This is Melinda. She laughs when she's anxious. (Melinda laughs) And that's the thing. (Melinda laughs) She's always anxious. - There you go. - [Producer] All right, Mark, let's go. You're on your own. - Now I'm on my own? Oh, shit. - [Mark] Melinda has
struggled with social anxiety all of her life. - It just feels like an
overwhelming buildup of emotion and feeling completely out of
control of my circumstance. - [Mark] Nothing she has
ever tried has worked.

- I've tried therapy, medication, many other different things,
and I'm still just anxious. - I've been working with people
and writing about anxiety for the past 15 years, so when
Melinda came to me for help, I decided to try something
completely unconventional. I came up with five social challenges that will take Melinda
across Southern California over two weeks. These five challenges
embody the five principles to overcoming social anxiety. By learning and practicing
these principles, anyone can overcome their
fear of so socializing, no matter how deep rooted it is. The catch is that these challenges are totally awkward and uncomfortable, especially for someone like Melinda, and that's why, to make
sure she actually does them. If you complete the entire scavenger hunt, you'll get $10,000. - Holy shit, what? (Melinda laughs) - [Mark] But first she
needs to find this guy from Saskatoon.

- [Crowd] Hello.
- [Mark] Dude, I think we're
gonna be here for a while. She's nervous. She's very nervous.
- [Mark] The point of the
first challenge is simple, desensitization. Get outside, talk to some strangers, realize the awkwardness
is not going to kill you.
- [Mark] She's gotta
stop thinking about it and just pull the trigger. This is gonna take forever. (upbeat music begins) Oh shit, I think she's going. Nope, chickened out. (upbeat music continues) Oh shit, she's doing it. She's doing it.
- [Melinda] Are you
from Saskatoon, Canada?
- [Stranger] I'm not.
- Okay, sorry. You look like someone I knew,
like years ago from there. (Melinda laughs) Nevermind. Thank you, nevermind.
- One down, like 30 more to go.

- You look so familiar. Yeah, are you from Saskatoon, by chance? Canada? I was on a trip there years ago and like ran into someone
who looked exactly like you. I was like, is that the same person? (Melinda laughs) Sorry about that. - [Mark] Is she on her phone? Oh my God. Who are you talking to? - It's making me feel better. - You're talking to nobody. (upbeat music continues) - [Melinda] Are you
from Saskatoon, Canada? - [Stranger] No. I'm from Iran. - [Melinda] Elon? - [Stranger] Iran. - [Melinda] Oh, Iran, yes. Sorry about that. (Melinda laughs) It's so nice to meet you. Are you guys from Saskatoon, by chance? Like Canada? Okay. - Oh shit, she's walking towards him. She's walking towards him. - I'm so sorry, I feel like I

are you from Saskatoon, Canada? - Yes, I am. - [Melinda] Are you? - Yes. - [Melinda] Oh my goodness. - [Mark] You did it. (Melinda laughs) - I was like, Please let this be the person. (dramatic boom) - [Mark] The cure to anxiety is not courage, but curiosity. When you train yourself to be curious about others and new activities, you remove the constant focus away from yourself, and you create opportunities to learn about others. - We're gonna make challah today, so come on in. - [Mark] When we get anxious, we tend to kind of start word vomiting. - [Melinda] I'm aware. (both laugh) - [Employee] Start at like level two or four. (Melinda laughs) - I did, I did level four. I did level four Throughout the day, Melinda and I spent hours

with various instructors. - Oh no. (Melinda laughs) - [Mark] And as time went
on, she slowly got better at asking them questions about
themselves and their craft. - What's your favorite thing to bake? Do you do other kinds of art? Do you know the name of the one in Hawaii? - [Mark] The more questions she asked, the more you could see
her taking the pressure off of herself. - Do you ever watch The
Great British Bake Off? So how do you keep it moist? How many layers are in a croissant? How long does it take you to make a bowl? And so how big is that gonna get? What am I even afraid of? - [Mark] And as Melinda found out, the more you focus on someone else, the quicker you find common
ground with that person. - I have a lot of anxiety, and find that it's really
helpful to be tactile

and have muscle memory. Feels really good and safe. - Yeah, it's very grounding. You feel like, okay, like this is something that I can focus on and not be so in your head. Yeah. - [Mark] How did that feel? - Because you prompted me to ask questions, I was just listening more and I was like, okay, what else can I say about this, or ask about this? But then I found after a while that I wasn't thinking so much about like what to ask. - [Mark] If the first challenge got Melinda to talk to strangers, the second showed her that those strangers weren't so different from her. They, too, were anxious and self-conscious, and in many cases they fell in love with their craft because it saved them from their demons. - Literally, before I did my yoga teacher training, my biggest fear was public speaking. - Oh yeah? - It helped me so much.

- [Mark] This realization would eventually be profound for Melinda. With two challenges down, she was on her way to that $10,000 reward. First, she would have to confront some public embarrassment and revisit a childhood experience that's haunted her her entire life. (dramatic boom) (upbeat music begins) ♪ That my best friend ♪ ♪ She a real bad bitch ♪ ♪ Got her own money ♪ ♪ She don't need no ♪ ♪ On the dance floor ♪ ♪ She had two or three drinks ♪ ♪ Now she's twerking ♪ ♪ She throw it out and come back in ♪ (dramatic boom) - [Mark] Most people who struggle with social anxiety have some deeply painful event in their past. As a result, they spin their lives associating strangers with fear, pain, and ridicule. - I had an event where a girl threw up on me on a school bus.

and that triggered this
huge years and years long. Like, I was diagnosed with
obsessive-compulsive disorder. That morphed into like eating disorders and all kinds of other stuff
that has manifested in different ways throughout my life. - [Mark] It might sound
simple, but a huge part of overcoming social anxiety
is rewiring that association, showing her that strangers
don't have to be scary; they can be fun. - We wanna make signs offering free hugs. (Melinda laughs) To people. - [Melinda] Okay. You know, I can write,
but the art is another whole other thing. - [Mark] How anxious are you feeling? - I've been like weirdly
bodily anxious today. I felt a lot of just sort
of like body anxieties, like fast heartbeat and
just feeling nervous. - I mean, I feel that a little bit, too. - Yeah. - Because this is not
a normal thing to do.

- (laughs) Yes. - [Mark] This was the first moment that I noticed a shift in Melinda. Before, she approached every
social activity with dread, but as we made the sign for free hugs, I noticed that despite being
nervous, she saw the challenge as an adventure and not something
to simply suffer through. - I'm just starting to see
things as a set of opportunities for something to go wrong. It's an opportunity to have a fun, and meaningful, and rewarding experience. (Mark grunts) - My head is too big. (both laugh) ♪ That my best friend ♪ ♪ She a real bad bitch ♪ ♪ Got her own money ♪ ♪ She don't need no ♪ ♪ On the dance floor ♪ ♪ She had two or three drinks ♪ ♪ Now she's twerking ♪ ♪ She throw it out and come back in ♪ ♪ That my best friend ♪ ♪ She a real bad bitch ♪

♪ Got her own car, she don't need no Lyft ♪ ♪ In the strip club, know my girl gon' tip ♪ ♪ Now she twerk, now she throw it out and come back in ♪ ♪ She been down since the jellies in the Volvos ♪ ♪ Got me steppin' out the jeep, got Manolo's ♪ ♪ When we pull up to the scene, they be filled with jealousy ♪ ♪ If a bitch get finicky, she gon' bring that energy ♪ - [Melinda] That was actually really fun. I was nervous as we were walking, just because like a lot of people were looking at us. But once we started getting hugs from people, it was really nice. - It's just good vibes. - Yeah. - Isn't it one of those things that you feel stupid for being nervous about? - Yes. - Like you're just like, wow, people are cool.

- Yes, definitely. - It's fun. I've not laughed so hard, and like just how happy it made people. - [Melinda] I know. - It was just amazing. As we talked in the car afterward, Melinda's entire demeanor had changed. There was a joy that had never been there before. Instead of talking of her anxiety in terms of suffering, she was talking about it in terms of excitement and humor, and what most people don't get is that this is what getting over anxiety actually looks like. It's not getting rid of the anxiety, it's learning to play with it. She seemed to be getting it, but if she was going to complete the last two challenges and win the $10,000, I knew that Melinda wouldn't be laughing for very long. (dramatic boom) There's a beautiful concept in social psychology that I call the going first principle. It's simple.

When two people are talking, whatever one person is willing to express or disclose about themselves, the other will then feel free to express or disclose in return. It's this disclosure that then creates a sense of friendship and intimacy. For people with social anxiety, like Melinda, they often spend their entire lives waiting for other people to go first, to give them permission to express the things that they think and feel. For this next challenge, I put Melinda in a room with strangers, and through prompts written on note cards, forced her to go first with them. - Oh man. If you could magically fix one relationship in your life, who would it be and why? Oh my gosh. - [Mark] At first, Melinda struggled with this exercise and spent most of her time agreeing with whatever was said to her. But then she sat down with Rick. - Hi. - Hi. (Melinda laughs) - And after a little initial small talk.

she finally took the leap and went first, and something incredible happened. - I wouldn't say that I was
addicted to alcohol in any way, but I heavily relied on it, and it was this sort of thorn in my side for most of my adult life, where I felt like I couldn't
function socially without it at all. And so I think I quit, like
a year and a half ago almost. - Done. That's cool. - Yeah, it was a big deal for me, and out of that came so much emotion, just because it was all there. Like I had nothing to numb
it with at all anymore. I was just dulling that
down like, you know, whacking it with a hammer,
like whack-a-mole for years. It's a very strange feeling to actually feel like you're
alone with yourself always. You know? And with no numbing. What about you? - It's like, I mean it's
a far longer conversation

than we probably have time for. But the bottom line is, you know, I have a history of drug addiction. I have a history of homelessness. I have a history of trauma, emotional trauma, but I'm also a parent. You know, I'm a dog lover. I'm an animal lover. I'm like, I have both sides of that spectrum of light and dark, like swimming around inside of me, you know? And from my experience, you know, it's good to be heard. It's good to be seen, 'cause you feel invisible. - Yeah, all the time. - And just a real simple like conversation can really do a lot. It really can do a lot. - Yeah, absolutely. - Well that went there. - That's, yeah, that's incredible. Thank you for sharing that. - Thanks for asking. - Yeah, that's really a vulnerable thing, and just really powerful to hear that.

(mellow music begins). [Mark] For the final challenge and for $10,000, I surprised Melinda with something that just two weeks ago she never would've imagined herself capable of doing. What's up guys? - [Melinda] What's up? Fancy seeing you here. - [Mark] How are you? - Good, how are you? - [Mark] Good to see you. Looking back over our time together, I felt that she was ready. I think she felt it too. (Mellow music continues) - Woo. - So you just spent about two hours revealing every detail of your life. - Every detail of my private life. (Mark laughs) What changed in this whole experiment for me is, in my mind I always equated being social with just fear and dread, and I always saw it as a test. It was always, am I saying the right thing? What's the right thing to say here?

And it's all about me. I didn't see it as an
opportunity to give someone the gift to share their story and to share who they are. If you had to guess what's happening. I have guessed so many things, I was thinking like a weird
like speed dating type of thing where I'm like talking to random people around like some kind of a restaurant, or some kind of buffet event, karaoke. When we started this,
you were visibly like. (Melinda laughs) And as we've gone along, you
can see, visually watching it, you have relaxed so much. You're having fun. Yeah. Come on. We made it. (crowd cheers and applauds) Welcome to your final challenge. Okay. Your challenge, (Crowd laughs) we have a room full of people. Yes, I know a lot of them, yeah. Your final challenge, I want you to give us all a
brief history of your anxiety.

past, present, and future. - Wow, okay. - So whenever you're
ready, lean up to the mic. (Melinda laughs) (crowd applauds and cheers) - This is not anything
that I expected, so. (crowd laughs) Thank you all for being here
and hearing a brief history of my anxious past, present, and future. I said something recently about how I came out of the womb anxious. There's this amazing classic
picture of me at an airport. I looked so upset, and that's basically like been
me ever since I can remember. I was like diagnosed with
obsessive-compulsive disorder in fifth grade, put on Paxil, Prozac, every like medication under the sun. And then that morphed
into an eating disorder that sticks through college, and then that morphed
into heavy binge drinking to deal with just being around people. Without alcohol, it's really
brought into the forefront

how much I use that as a crutch to deal with this crippling anxiety. - How confident do you feel about returning back to your regular life? - I feel very confident in doing it, because I've seen that I can do it. If I'm approaching a social situation and feeling anxious about something, I know what perspective
to come at it from. Here's the goal, curiosity. That's your only intention for this. Like, nothing else matters. I feel like there's a couple of things that are different about this time. I feel like I've tried
to get help in the past, but this time I actually really want it, and I didn't before because
my fear was stronger than that curiosity and like wanting something better for myself. Working with Mark and
this whole experience, he's basically helped
me to shift that lens from people are scary and
like I should be fearful, to coming at social interactions through a lens of curiosity. Every social interaction up until recently

has been just kind of like, how do I get through
this as fast as possible? It's ruined every
relationship I've ever had, and you know, I want to keep this one. That has been a big motivator
for me to get over this. And in doing that, it's
been, I've realized, hey, this isn't just good for
us, it's good for me. One of the biggest lessons
I've learned is that we can't do anything on our own. And everything that we have in life is a result of other people,
like every single thing. That's something that took
me way too long to learn, and I'm just really grateful
that I know that now. I'm grateful for every single
person who has been there for me. And that's all I'll say. (Crowd cheers and applauds) I have no words. Like that was not at all what I expected. - Since this is a YouTube
show and everything,

I went to a printer and got a big fucking check. (Melinda laughs). (crowd applauds and cheers) - [Melinda] Seeing people who I care about who came out to this, knowing that there are other people who feel like this, and maybe they see that there's a way out of it, and if you just keep working at it, that it can change, and your perspective can change, I think, is what the most important thing is. Like to me, I want people to know that your perspective can change. - [Mark] Yeah. (inspirational music begins).

I Solved Her Life-Long Anxiety in Two Weeks

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Mark Manson

A man offers $10,000 to help Melinda overcome her social anxiety through five awkward and uncomfortable social challenges in Southern California.

The first challenge focuses on desensitization by talking to strangers, forcing Melinda to confront her fears and awkwardness.

Despite the initial struggle, she begins to engage with strangers in the pursuit of overcoming her anxiety.

Overcoming Anxiety Through Curiosity and Connection

A person from Saskatoon, Canada, engages in a journey to overcome anxiety through curiosity and connecting with others.

By focusing on asking questions and learning about others, they were able to alleviate the pressure on themselves and find common ground with different people.

Through this process, they discovered that many others also struggled with anxiety, leading to a profound realization and a step towards confronting their fears.

Overcoming Social Anxiety through Free Hugs

A woman's journey to overcome social anxiety is depicted through offering free hugs to strangers, leading to a shift from dread to excitement.

The experience brings about a change in her demeanor, from suffering to finding joy and humor in overcoming anxiety.

The story highlights the concept of not eliminating anxiety, but learning to embrace and play with it as a way to overcome it.

The Power of Mutual Disclosure in Building Intimacy

Mutual disclosure creates a sense of friendship and intimacy between people.

For those with social anxiety, like Melinda, being forced to go first with strangers through prompts can lead to powerful and vulnerable conversations.

By taking the leap to disclose personal experiences, individuals can create a profound and meaningful connection with others.

Melinda's Transformation: Overcoming Anxiety Challenges

Melinda's perception of social interaction shifted from fear to seeing it as an opportunity to connect and share.

Her final challenge involved giving a heartfelt account of her struggle with anxiety, from childhood to the present.

She opened up about her diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder, struggles with medication, and how it led to an eating disorder and heavy drinking.

Overcoming Anxiety and Shifting Perspectives

Confidence in returning to regular life is high due to a shift in perspective and a strong desire for personal growth.

The experience has led to a realization that approaching social interactions with curiosity, rather than fear, is transformative.

The support of others and the recognition of the impact of personal growth on relationships have been crucial in this journey.