Step 4-A: How Dream Work Reduces Social
Anxiety Share
Social Anxiety has
caused many of to give up, at least to some degree, on our dreams for a better
life. Or we may never have dared to dream at all. Surely, many of us have
concluded, social anxiety has built walls so wide and so high that there is no
way around or over them. Perhaps we still dream but less so than we once did.
We may still think that some limited progress is possible but that ultimately
we will have to settle for much less than what we had once hoped for in life.
In the early stages of social anxiety we may have had fuller dreams for
ourselves; but as the syndrome beat us down year after year, we may have
dreamed less often and on an ever smaller scale. Over time, our sense of possibilities
diminished as unrelenting social anxiety eroded our hope.
As the result
many of us feel that cherished dreams for a better life are of the impossible
variety. Others haven’t completely given up— but still perpetually defer their dreams—
putting off despair by banking on the notion that if they just hang on and keep
doing what they have always done, that someday social anxiety will wear off
through everyday living. Only then will their dreams come true, so no need to
dream that much until the day of liberation from anxiety comes. Until then,
holding on tightly to a constricted life is seen as the solution. Others are
determined seekers, trying one self-help approach after another; or one
therapist after another; so far with limited results. Nevertheless they may also
defer the business of actually dreaming until the hurdle of social anxiety is
finally leapt. “After we overcome our social fears— then we’ll start dreaming in
detail of a new life in earnest,” they think, never knowing that despite their sincere
efforts, that they’ve got the cart trying to pull the horse.
What many of us
don’t know yet is that the practice of healthy dreaming is actually a key part
of the process of healing fear: that engaging in dream-work helps to build our
faith; opens our minds to new possibilities and allows us to use our creativity
as an ally. And that faith, being the opposite of fear, means that having full
and detailed dreams for our lives— in some cases for the first time in years—
actually helps us to heal our anxiety.
The fact that
we dream so little is not our fault. It is just a part of the natural process
of fear constricting the mind. Less obvious than the fears that make us
miserable every day, yet insidious nevertheless, this is the hidden face of
social anxiety— only made visible when we start noticing what we don’t think
about just as well as we recognize what we do think about.
Naturally we are
all painfully aware of the fears that are right in front of us every day; at
work, at school, in our social lives or in the family. These fears are obvious because
they distress us so much. But we are often much less aware how far fear has gone
to shut down our imaginations. We no longer think about doing many things
because we are sure, due to our anxiety, that they are just not possible. We edit entire aspects of our needs, our wants
and desires out of our lives in the process: As life becomes constricted we
begin to forget our options. They no longer even enter our thoughts. We may
even begin to forget who we are in the process.
So in one way
or another we cease to imagine the life that we really wanted, and instead find
ourselves living a life that is almost completely alien to our wishes and our
potential. We hang on to jobs that we dislike because of the fears that
advancement would trigger. Or we lose or avoid employment for the same reasons.
We may tolerate friendships that drain our energies or bore us, or we may even
accept relationships that subject us to abuse because we believe that this is
the best that a socially anxious person can possibly hope for. Romance may fall
into the same unsatisfying patterns, or may seem a distant fantasy rather than
an attainable reality. Unaware that our imagination has become a casualty of
our social anxiety, we may spend much painful effort trying to make our limited
lives work rather than creating new options.
As social
anxiety tightens its grip on our lives, we may begin to forget that the seeds
of healing fear lie in the very act of imagining a larger and better life.
Especially one that is close to our hearts; that utilizes our favorite talents
and abilities; that involves doing the things that deep down we always wanted
to do, that engages our loves and even our passions: A life that is reflective
of who we truly are.
This because
the healthiest of our dreams come from our true selves; and the problem is that,
as we turn away from allowing ourselves to dream, our inner voice is stifled
and even stilled. We may, as the result, no longer know what we want. Life
defined by the limits of social anxiety becomes a life of emotional and
spiritual poverty that puts us out of touch with our desires. For many this
poverty may also be economic. Some of us even believe that we deserve this.
Surely this is our just desert for failure. Heaping on self-criticism only
serves to deepen this conviction. As abandonment of our dreams and the harsh
chatter of derision silence our inner voices we wither, like a plant deprived
of water.
The solution is
to allow the life-giving water of our dreams to flow again. To let them nourish
our roots and strengthen our interior voice which is after all the voice of our
souls wishing to declare a fuller birth of our lives into this world. Some even
believe that this is the voice of the universe whispering through our spirits,
calling us to service each in our own unique way in this life. In any case, each of us was born with our own
fingerprints, our own special potential and abilities; our own special
something that we have to offer the world, that no one else can offer in
exactly the same way. This is also the source of a healthy personal power, a
power without cruelty or enmity towards others. As our inner voice strengthens
and our dreams for our lives grow more vivid and detailed, our social anxiety
gradually weakens. This is especially true if we take steps, even small and
halting, into a life of our dreams.
“But how can we
do this?” Some may ask. How can we dream dreams that help to heal our spirits
and how then can we walk the walk that brings these dreams into reality? Since
control is the enemy of the socially anxious, the answer begins here: The first
three steps of the 12 Steps of Social Anxiety Anonymous show the way. Taken together, they orient us towards
surrender and faith. These help us to start clearing the patterns of control
from our personalities. Thus not only directly reducing social anxiety, but
also allowing us to gradually let go of perceptual control: the control that
works by shutting out options, and to becoming gently receptive to dreaming
authentic, detailed and healthy dreams about the lives that we really
want.
It may be easier
to do this if one takes dream-work as a single step, separate from taking any
other action. This can take the pressure off, allowing us to dream without the fear
of taking further actions influencing us. When we dream with no immediate
expectation or pressure of having to do anything else, we often dream more
effectively. Since there is no pressure to take any immediate steps, our minds
are more relaxed and our inner voice can speak more freely. Pressure is never
the way to go with social anxiety anyway. Pressure after all is just another
word for control which we try to remove from our lives at all levels. Better to
go easily and gently.
We often receive
our dreams in pieces, a little at a time. Visions of our better life may come
to us at odd hours: late at night, at work, on the bus or while shopping, in
the shower or while mowing the lawn. We learn to expect the unexpected and to
take time out to receive whatever is coming in. When little flickers of dreams
appear, we try to allow them room to run and bloom into greater detail. Taking
time for dreams when they arise allows for them to manifest more fully in our
minds, and eventually in our lives. For this reason it can be helpful to carry
a journal at all times, in order to jot down parts of our vision as they come
to us.
Then, when we
are ready and on no one else’s timetable, we can construct the whole picture of
the life we really want. This work is done in earnest when we do a formal Step
4-A.
But first a
foundation for good dreaming is to write a ‘purpose statement’ for ourselves—
“What is my purpose in life?” Is perhaps the single most
important question that we will ever ask ourselves, but this is not just
beneficial to our spirits: It has a direct and positive effect on our social
anxiety as well:
What gives meaning to our lives? What is it that we want to
bring to the world while we are here? And what would that mean in terms of the
career we choose, the person that we marry, or the children that we raise? What
is our purpose in terms of recreation or travel? We try to ask this question for each category
of our life.
While asking
these questions we make a concerted effort to leave social anxiety out of the
equation. The questions are instead framed like this: “If I had no social
anxiety, what would my purpose be?” We allow
a full run of our imaginations in this context. We let ourselves dream of our
purpose as if the social anxiety problem were already solved. And since the
pressure of taking any actions is off, our imaginations are free to roam.
Rather than imagining
how to get more around the edges of our social fears, we allow the fullest of
imaginings— a clear image of a life without the limits of social fear. Such
dreaming, at its essence, is an act of faith. We dream beyond the certainty of
our fears by reaching beyond them with our imaginations. We draw for this on
the childhood habit of pretending. We pretend, for a moment, that there is no
social anxiety in our lives, and that we truly could have what we wanted. And
then we allow ourselves to picture in greater detail what this anxiety-free
life would look like. Simply put, we dare to dream.
We should also ask the following questions—
does our newfound purpose come from our true selves? Is it tied to what we really
love to do? Does it include serving ourselves as well as others (self love
balanced with love of others)? We need to take special care not to build a
sense of purpose out of feelings of shame, indebtedness or guilt. Our purpose
should come not from what we feel we should do but rather what we want to do. A
healthy purpose should be tied to our hearts and things that we enjoy doing
rather than some kind of penance or self-sacrifice.
This does not
mean that we abandon adult obligations— especially to children or other dependent
loved ones who are not seriously abusive. But it does mean that we try to
rebuild our lives more in line with our real passions along the way; A life
that grows out of self love as well as love of others.
Following our hearts
more closely in work and education will usually benefit everybody anyway, so
long as we proceed in a responsible manner. Taking career changes or additional
education in stages can make sure that we don’t take a vow of unreasonable poverty
in the process. Balance of course is the key. Part of self love is meeting our
economic needs as well as our need for rest, recreation, friendship and
intimate partnership along the way. Not every dream can be realized overnight.
Often we find that merely getting on the path towards our dreams creates an
immediate feeling of relief and buoyancy not to mention energizing us and
weakening our anxiety as well. At other
times our anxiety may put up a fight in response, at which point we find that a
return to the first Three Steps and continued reliance on SPA support groups
can be a great help, if not immediately then eventually, if we gently persist. Flexibility and openness to revising our
dreams, not according to our anxiety but in continued dialogue with our hearts
may also be a part of the process.
Once we have developed a sense of purpose we
can proceed to flesh out the complete portrait of our dreams. Here we remind
ourselves again to take the pressure off and dream only, with no expectation of
taking any immediate actions other than writing down our visions of a better
life.
When taking Step
4-A, we write out these visions in great detail for each category of our lives,
such as: Work, income, education, recreation and travel. Or dating, romance,
long-term relationships and marriage. It helps to describe in all five senses
what each area will look like. What are the colors, the smells, the sounds and
the textures? And we take extra-special care to write out dreams that includes
our feelings. If we desire to teach we describe ourselves enjoying delivering a
lecture to a class. Or we may describe ourselves feeling content and loved in a
healthy new relationship or a revitalized old one. We can’t always count on the love of others
but we can imagine loving ourselves along the way as we undertake the journey
of finding or building healthier relationships. Emotions should never be
neglected when doing dream-work. We can imagine ourselves working happily at a new
hobby, cuddling next to a loving partner, laughing with new friends, or experiencing
the excitement of a long avoided vacation.
Our dreams should
not only be about the social aspect of our lives, but all aspects. A fuller
life in one area will often reduce our overall anxiety. For example, those of
us who love writing have often discovered that allowing ourselves more time for
this cherished yet very solitary hobby also experienced a reduction of social
anxiety as the result. Simply put, we become less anxious the more we live the
lives that we really want, since every aspect of ourselves is connected to
every other. The more we do what we love, so long as it is healthy, the more we
relax and the more that fear falls away.
High expectations
should be avoided however. Rather than setting up control issues about how
things will absolutely turn out with our dreams, we let go of any results of
our dreaming. Instead, we simply allow ourselves to imagine in detail how we
would like our lives to be. Out of this process we may eventually take actions,
but even then we gently keep the focus on the process of getting there rather
than holding tightly to outcomes. We don’t grab onto our new visions, we just
gently receive them; and then we work at letting go again as we gradually take
steps towards them. “Easy does it.” is an old 12 Step slogan that comes in
handy here.
Since visions
are better received than forced or contrived, we do our best to gently prepare
ourselves for accepting them rather than hammering them out. We may do this by
talking about our dreams for our lives in the groups. Sharing helps to gently
reinforce our new visions and further break the spell of impossibility that has
haunted us for years. We may share about
the acceptability of dreaming, since we may not have thought it was right or
realistic previously to imagine such things. Does the imagine of doing what we
really want trigger misplaced feelings of shame? Do we feel undeserving? These
things may be discussed to good effect. We can also share about our beliefs and
how we are working to change them— defining what we specifically feel to be
impossible and how we are trying to reach beyond that with our imaginations.
All of this helps to prepare the way.
Balance of course
is always the key: We take care not to dream at the expense of doing the
footwork in the rest of the SPA program. Attending to the patient work of
ongoing study and practice of the 12 Steps, attending groups on a regular
basis, letting other group members into our lives and developing healthy
relationships in recovery are all critical aspects of making progress with our
social anxiety and are essential to our journey towards our dreams.
We do our best to
leave room for our higher power in the process, approaching our dreams with
gentle receptivity. We also come to realize that even lives without social
anxiety are not unlimited. Not every dream was meant to come true, and higher
power may at times have surprises for us; providing joys and adventures that we
were not able to even imagine. Nevertheless the lives of the socially anxious
tend to be starved of sufficient dreaming, and equally starved of steps towards
those dreams. We can’t always control or anticipate the outcome, but our lives
are much fuller and the garden of our lives begins to flourish again when we
allow the process of imagining back in.
Completion of
Step 4-A sets the stage for a thorough although gentle effort in completing Step
4-B. While 4-A tells us where we want to go, Step 4-B helps to clear away the emotional
blockages that have long kept us from realizing our dreams. Sharing Step 4-A
and Step 4-B with a Sponsor or other respected and wise person who has experienced
significant progress in overcoming social fears as well as significant
experience in working the 12 Steps should follow soon afterwards. This sharing
is the essence of Step 5 and is described elsewhere in our literature.
The
12 Steps of Social Phobic’s Anonymous:
Read More Chapters of Free Online Book Twelve Gentle Steps to Overcoming Social Anxiety
Return
To Social Phobics Anonymous Home Page To Find Social Anxiety Support Groups
Los 12 Pasos de Fóbicos Sociales Anónimo
Social
Phobic’s Anonymous / Social Anxiety Anonymous Home Page: www.healsocialanxiety.com
(Info on finding or
starting SPA / SOCAA support groups can be found on this page).