A trick to dissolve social anxiety: close your eyes

It sounds dumb but it works. I do it all the time now. I learned this by watching a clip of Rick Rubin

I’m generally comfortable holding the spotlight in a group conversation. But there’s one recurring thing I struggle a lot with:

sometimes I lose my train of thought, and all eyes are on me, no one has any idea what I’m trying to say. I’m grappling with blank stares as I try to articulate. The longer it takes me to get there, the more the anxiety builds up, and I never get there.

I never feel any social anxiety in conversations, except when I’m in the middle of a thought and I encounter these blank stares. When people are smiling and nodding, it’s so easy. When they are confused, I backtrack, I get nervous.

This anxiety comes form a good place: I DO want to be sensitive to others’ facial reactions. I don’t want to offend them. I want to make sure they’re following along. If I get a confused look, I’m going to pause and say, “does that make sense?”

The problem is when this sensitivity to others gets to a point where it blocks me from forming a thought.

So, it sounds stupid but, if I’m struggling with blank confused stares, I just close my eyes. And the anxiety goes away.

I literally close my eyes in the middle of a conversation, and pretend the other person isn’t there. I keep talking and just focus on what I’m trying to say until I finish the thought, then I open my eyes again.

Isn’t that weird?

Yes!

If you try this, you will almost certainly feel extremely weird.

But if you see someone else doing this, you won’t think it’s that weird. You might not even notice it!

Here is a 30 second clip of Rick Rubin doing this:

It is so obvious when he does it. But then again, I sent this to a friend and she thought I sent the wrong clip (she had to watch again to see it!)

It’s weird to me how easily I picked this up. This is the only video I’ve ever watched of Rick Rubin. I don’t think I even consciously noticed it. I just tried doing this one time during a conversation and it helped a ton. And I kept it doing. And then I stumbled on this clip again and I connected the dots.

I don’t know what’s going through Rick’s mind when he does this, but I can tell you what would be going through my mind if I were the one being interviewed here:

• Rick starts out kind of teasing the interviewer, “I have no technical abilities” (Rick’s making a true a statement but it’s obvious Anderson will find it strange)

• The conversation shifts to be more honest / genuine when he’s asked, “what are you being paid for?”

• Here, I’d want to answer honestly. Anderson’s eyes are on me, puzzled, confused, expecting some profound answer. I am very in tune with what Anderson is thinking of me right now (hence, that’s how I know what to say to make him laugh). But right now, I need to “move into” my own mind.

• Specifically now I’m thinking of, “what value DO I add to a project?” Anderson’s face is very distracting as I try to answer this. His eyes and face react to every word I say. The words don’t come easy because I’m still searching for this answer.

• So I close my eyes, as I construct the answer: “The…confidence that I have in my taste” that was the key.

  • Because, when working with artists, who have a lot of potential beautiful work they can create, but they are stuck, what they use me for is essentially a kind of guide. An artistic “geiger counter” so to speak. I tell them what parts of their in-progress work are beautiful, and why. That’s it. That’s all I do.

  • So, what I’m trying to do is put this into words for Anderson. I KNOW what my value is, but how do I put into words?

• So, once I get those two pieces (1) confident in my taste (2) ability to express it. That’s it. That’s the thought! I open my eyes again to continue the conversation and see if Anderson gets it.

• This is important: now that I know what I want to say (that’s half the battle), now I can go back to focusing on: does Anderson get it? If not, we’ll keep talking about it until we make progress. Or I’ll invite him to ask questions to see what he thinks I’m saying, and correct it as I go

We go back to the familiar dance of mapping conscious experience, to words, back to conscious experience into another human mind.

generated by Dall E. See: twitter.com/DefenderOfBasic/status/1778931186041045012