#099 - Dr. Ellen Hendriksen - How To Overcome Social Anxiety & Stop Letting Fear Decide Your Life

Dr. Ellen Hendriksen reveals how social anxiety convinces us we're being judged and why that’s usually a lie. She outlines the four ways it shows up, how avoidance wires it deeper, and the subtle difference between being introverted and being afraid. We unpack the role of perfectionism, how to turn outward when anxiety pulls you in, and why real change happens when you stop waiting to feel ready. It starts by living as the person you’re becoming.

Timestamps: 
00:00 You're Not The Only One Who Feels The Way You Do
01:00 Social Anxiety Isn't Innate
02:35 Everyday vs. Capital -S Social Anxiety 
08:07 Social Anxiety Misconceptions 
10:50 When Social Anxiety Turns Into Default Mode
12:06 Understanding The Physiological & Sociological Of Social Anxiety
17:36 Socially Anxious vs. Being Introverted
20:25 Ellen's Personal & Professional Journey
24:16 Impact Of Environment 
27:23 How Others See You Is Not How You See You
29:38 Unlearning Social Anxiety
34:20 Breaking The "Once I Feel Better..." Mindset
37:05 It's Not As Bad As You Think It Is
41:42 You Don't Get Rid Of Social Anxiety; You Stop Engaging With It
44:16 How We Feel Isn't How We Look
47:29 Importance Of Turning Outward 
49:40 Social Anxiety Isn’t Inability — It’s Depth of Connection
54:24 Social Anxiety Can Be A Tool 
57:03 Learn More About Dr. Ellen Hendriksen

Thank you so much for listening. I truly appreciate your time and support. Let me know what you thought of the episode and what you would like to see in the future. Any feedback would be awesome. Don't forget to subscribe for more exciting content on YouTube, and leave a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever platform you are listening on.

Connect with me below:
Instagram: Tim Doyle
Youtube: Outworker

Chapters

• 0:00 You're Not The Only One Who Feels The Way You Do
• 1:00 Social Anxiety Isn't Innate
• 2:35 Everyday vs. Capital -S Social Anxiety
• 8:07 Social Anxiety Misconceptions
• 10:50 When Social Anxiety Turns Into Default Mode
• 12:06 Understanding The Physiological & Sociological Of Social Anxiety
• 17:36 Socially Anxious vs. Being Introverted
• 20:25 Ellen's Personal & Professional Journey
• 24:16 Impact Of Environment
• 27:23 How Others See You Is Not How You See You
• 29:38 Unlearning Social Anxiety
• 34:20 Breaking The "Once I Feel Better..." Mindset
• 37:05 It's Not As Bad As You Think It Is
• 41:42 You Don't Get Rid Of Social Anxiety; You Stop Engaging With It
• 44:16 How We Feel Isn't How We Look
• 47:29 Importance Of Turning Outward
• 49:40 Social Anxiety Isn’t Inability — It’s Depth of Connection
• 54:24 Social Anxiety Can Be A Tool
• 57:03 Learn More About Dr. Ellen Hendriksen

Transcript

Dr. Ellen Hendriksen reveals how social anxiety convinces us we're being judged and why that’s usually a lie. She outlines the four ways it shows up, how avoidance wires it deeper, and the subtle difference between being introverted and being afraid. We unpack the role of perfectionism, how to turn outward when anxiety pulls you in, and why real change happens when you stop waiting to feel ready. It starts by living as the person you’re becoming.

Tim Doyle (00:08.068)

Is part of social anxiety forgetting that you're not the only one that feels the way that you do?

Ellen Hendriksen (00:13.678)

What an opener. Yes, 100%. Yeah, no, think it's reassuring that so many people feel the same way, that it has a name. And not only that, but it has a treatment with many parts. But yes, 100 % anxiety can be very isolating, and social anxiety can be particularly isolating. So yes, indeed.

Tim Doyle (00:36.893)

How do we begin to appreciate that social anxiety is something we experience, but it's not something that we carry within us.

Ellen Hendriksen (00:46.55)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that...

it revolves on one word. So if I were to define social anxiety, it's the perception that something is wrong with us. And that's the word that I think is the most important, it's a perception. But that perception that we are either unappealing or awkward or we can talk later about the four different kind of buckets of social anxiety, but whatever it is that we think is insufficient

about us, think we have to work really hard to conceal or hide whatever that is, or it will be revealed to everyone around us and then they will judge and reject us for it. So I think that word perception is really important in differentiating the fact that this is a valid thing that we experience but we don't hold it within us. Even when our perception is in something that does have a grain of truth.

like some people really do blush when they talk or some folks really, know, I don't, one of the buckets is appearance. Some people do have blemished skin that they're worried people are gonna notice, but it's the degree of, to what degree people notice and judge you and the consequences thereof still remains to an extent perception.

Tim Doyle (02:12.253)

Yeah, social anxiety is obviously a spectrum and we relate to it in different ways. So I mean, I'd love to get into those four buckets as well as the different terminology that you use to illustrate that nuance with the two terms of everyday social anxiety versus capital S social anxiety. So maybe start there and then walk into the four buckets. What is that difference there between everyday and capital S?

Ellen Hendriksen (02:35.02)

Yeah, for sure.

Ellen Hendriksen (02:39.842)

Yeah, like 99 % of people know what it's like to feel socially anxious. We've all had a socially anxious moment. If we've gone on a first date or a job interview or had a first day of school or moved to a new city, know, having, being in a new place where we feel like we might be judged or evaluated or criticized.

Most people can relate to that. So 99 % of us. Okay, let's do some other numbers. So 40 % of people identify as shy, and that is a colloquial way of saying socially anxious. Okay, so that's another big group. 80 % of people have identified as, at some point in their life, they have been like dispositionally shy. Like not just shy because of a situation, but shy in

character. That could be were you a toddler who sort of like hid behind your parents leg? Were you super awkward and self-conscious as a teenager? Like 80 % of us nod along with that. And so the difference of that, those are the everyday social anxiety forms. Very relatable, super common, but where it becomes capital S social anxiety or IE something diagnosable is when it crosses the threshold

of distress or impairment. And distress essentially means you suffer. Like you have GI problems for a week before you have to give a presentation at school. Or you lose sleep for three days before a first date, something like that. It becomes sort of your mental screen saver. If you're not thinking about something else, if you're not actively engaged in something else, that social anxiety is the default for what you think about.

That counts as distress. Impairment is when you can't live the life you want to live. So my classic examples are, say you feel unable to raise your hand in class and so you just deliberately decide to forego the 20 % of your grade that is class participation. That's impairment. Or you decide to give up a job promotion because you would have to go on the road and give presentations or you would have to meet and greet people from satellite offices and that just feels impossible to you.

Ellen Hendriksen (04:58.891)

So not being able to move forward in your life and do the things you want to do counts as impairment. There, that's diagnosable, social anxiety, and 13 % of us at some point in life will cross that threshold and qualify as having distress or impairment.

Tim Doyle (05:18.151)

So a large part of what you would say capital S social anxiety could be is that it manifests in some type of physical way.

Ellen Hendriksen (05:25.741)

It could, yeah, for sure. I mean, mind-body connection, mind-body are definitely increasingly the same thing. So it could manifest physically, or it could manifest, again, it could manifest cognitively, like it's all you think about. It could manifest in terms of, I guess that would be more impairment, I was gonna say behaviors, but that would probably be not being able to do the things you wanna do. But...

Yeah, speaking of manifesting physically, so you asked about the four buckets and there are, this is not my work, this is Dr. David Moskovich at the University of Waterloo and his research has found that our social anxiety can fall into one or more categories, one of which is our appearance slash our bodies. So this has some overlapping

Venn diagram circles with body dysmorphic disorder, but we might worry that others will judge or reject us for our appearance, like our hair is weird or our skin is blemished or we're ugly or we're too fat or something along those lines. A second bucket is the signs of anxiety itself. those physical manifestations of anxiety. So my voice is shaking or people will see my hands shake and think I'm weird.

or people will see the heat start to rise in my face. They'll see me turn red and think that I'm some kind of freak. that signs of anxiety itself. The third bucket is our social skills. So people will see that I'm boring or that I have nothing to say or that I'm awkward and they'll again, judge and reject me for it. Or the fourth bucket is sort of our entire character. Like I have no personality or I'm incapable

or I'm stupid or something like that, something about our entire being. And so our social anxiety generally manifests in one or more of those buckets. the common thread, again, is there's something that we think is wrong with us that we have to hide and conceal to avoid being judged and criticized by others.

Tim Doyle (07:44.957)

Are there any common misconceptions that you see or people just flat out get wrong?

Ellen Hendriksen (07:50.893)

The biggest one, I'm so glad you asked that question, that's a great question. Okay, so the biggest one is that we have to accommodate social anxiety. That it's something that is just like characterological, it's just like part of who we are, there's nothing we can do about it, and so we have to accommodate it, sort of like a learning disorder, a learning disability, something like that. So, that's actually the opposite of what we want to do because social anxiety is maintained through avoidance.

So when we avoid doing what we're afraid of, then that underscores the two lies of social anxiety, one of which is the worst case scenario is bound to happen. The worst thing I can imagine is a foregone conclusion. And the second lie of social anxiety is I couldn't handle that anyway. So it's about the like what will happen and about our own capabilities. And so when we avoid

So when we make our partner in the group presentation do all the talking, then we don't get a chance to learn that.

things we don't get booed by the class and that we could actually handle it. if we, it could be even more benign if we let our phone go to voicemail instead of picking up when we know who it is, we don't get a chance to learn that like we can think on the fly and that probably they're not calling to yell at us. the avoidance is what feeds and waters social anxiety. And so when we accommodate it, we never get a chance to learn.

that we could do things well. We never get a chance to learn that. Maybe we're more capable than we think we are.

Ellen Hendriksen (09:46.219)

if I could give one piece of advice to folks who have the instinct to accommodate social anxiety, which I think is good instinct. It comes from a good place. We want to make people more comfortable. We want to make ourselves not have to suffer, but it's to try to work our way towards living the life we want to live with some anxiety. The goal is not to never feel anxious. The goal is to do the things you want to do with

some anxiety and as you do that, number one, the anxiety will decrease but also you'll have more evidence that you can do things that you value with anxiety along for the ride.

Tim Doyle (10:28.049)

getting deeper into that avoidance component, if we just continue to avoid, avoid, avoid, how does that work from a neurological perspective where it just turns into the habit and kind of like the default way that we operate?

Ellen Hendriksen (10:47.739)

Yeah, yeah, I like to use the metaphor of when we avoid, it's sort of like...

walking or hiking down like a well-worn hiking path. Like it's easy. We've trodden it many times before. There's not like rocks or obstacles or whatnot. And so we default that way. It's, it's very easy. The well-worn neural pathway. Whereas at first, you know, when we, when we start to do things that we would normally avoid, and that's why it's important to start small. We can talk about that later too. It's like kind of bushwhacking our way through a new

a new hiking trail and we have to push the branches out of the way and we might trip over a rock and it's a lot harder to hike at first but our goal is to hike it enough times that it becomes as easy, if not easier, to hike than that original pathway of avoidance.

Tim Doyle (11:43.678)

and then bringing two more components into it, the physiological and the sociological, because I know a large component of social anxiety that you talk about is that this is learned and this is from experience. But to take a nature versus nurture perspective here, how are we supposed to understand that relationship between the physiological and the sociological when it comes to social anxiety?

Ellen Hendriksen (11:54.062)

Mmm.

Ellen Hendriksen (12:07.962)

Yeah, mean, think so, okay, so we know that social anxiety is genetic or at least heritable if a first degree relative of ours. So a parent, a sibling, a child has social anxiety. have a, I think it's been a long time since I thought about this, but I think it's a four to six times as high chance. It's either four to six or six to eight. Yeah.

Tim Doyle (12:32.753)

And you're talking about social anxiety in general there or just the capital S?

Ellen Hendriksen (12:36.802)

Capitalized, capitalized, yes. If we've been diagnosed with social anxiety, we have a multi-fold time's chance of also having that same disorder if it's within the first degree relative. So it's definitely heritable. So it can come written in our genes. But genetics is not destiny. so we, another layer of social anxiety when you talk about nature and nurture is certainly

early childhood experiences and so we might see socially-experienced behaviors modeled. We might see our parents avoid social interactions. We might see our families of origin be really perfectionistic about how to behave socially. So they might not avoid per se, but they might have really stringent rules about what how we are to behave and how we are to interact.

with others that can confer some social anxiety. We can talk later about perfectionism and social anxiety. We might also just see...

We might come from sort of more chaotic family and not really learn how this all works and so just feel sort of lost later and that can certainly lead to some avoidance or feeling incapable. And then a large percentage of kids develop social anxiety through bullying. And there what happens is that your feared reveal actually does come true that somebody does judge, criticize, reject you for some personal quality that they determine

is wrong with you. And so when you've lived through that experience, is, you know, makes perfect sense to have to be on guard and to have to be hypervigilant to try to do everything under our control, we think, to keep that from happening again. So early experiences, whether that's family or just the...

Ellen Hendriksen (14:47.406)

growing up in this world can 100 % feed into a later diagnosis of social anxiety.

Tim Doyle (14:54.621)

So majority of the time, the people who are suffering from social anxiety, whether it is that capital S or even every day, is that being built in developmental childhood years? Or have you seen cases where it can happen later in life when you're a fully formed adult and you really hadn't had those past experiences?

Ellen Hendriksen (15:16.418)

Yeah, for sure. mean, they're, okay, so most cases of social anxiety start between the ages of eight and 15. So late elementary, middle school, early high school, those formative years when we are becoming more aware of the outside world and our social place in it and perhaps the, the,

how we are supposed to behave becomes more strict and judgment really does occur. know, kids can be brutal. Middle school is rough.

Oftentimes that's when that negative feedback, that actual judgment does happen. So eight and 15 is when most cases sprout, but absolutely it can happen later in life. I've worked with clients who develop social anxiety through workplace bullying or through a toxic relationship. So it can definitely start in adult years as well.

Tim Doyle (16:25.425)

What's the relationship between being socially anxious and being introverted?

Ellen Hendriksen (16:32.012)

that's a great question. I'm so glad you asked that. Yes, those are different. Yes, they can look and feel the same, but the core difference is that in social anxiety, the real heart of that is fear, whereas in introversion, introversion lacks...

You might feel socially drained. You might prefer not to go to parties or be in big groups or whatnot. You might recharge by being yourself as being by yourself as opposed to with people. But regardless that fear of judgment is not present in introversion. And I think that can be made clearer because you can be a socially anxious extrovert.

So for example, you might love being on stage or love going to parties or love being in front of a crowd and at the same time fear that nobody really wants you there or that nobody likes you or that you're gonna get booed off the stage. So there can be extraversion where we get energy from others but there's still that core fear of judgment and evaluation.

Tim Doyle (17:44.542)

I guess to use myself as a case study here a little bit and I guess to bring another word to it, like I'm definitely introverted. I definitely like more solitude, alone time or smaller gathering environments. And I would say like when I'm in a massive group setting, I wouldn't consider it fear, but it's more so of like, I guess just like being overwhelming at times. Would you consider that like socially anxious, like overwhelm or is it mostly like,

Ellen Hendriksen (18:08.056)

for sure.

Tim Doyle (18:14.213)

a fearful type of feeling.

Ellen Hendriksen (18:16.898)

That's a great question, because I have heard some, I've worked with a number of clients who love being in crowds because then they can feel anonymous. They're like, nobody here knows who I am. There are so many people here that no one's looking at me. I can kind of do whatever I want, or I can, know, no one's gonna notice my perceived flaws. So I think it can work.

in different ways. It can feel like anonymity. It can absolutely feel like a sensory overwhelm. I definitely relate to you when I'm in a big crowd or at a concert or something. It can be the noise and the people and the constantly changing stimuli can just be a lot. But I think, again, if there's that core fear there of people are going to notice and judge me, then we can put it in the social anxiety camp.

Tim Doyle (19:14.929)

What has your own journey been like personally, but then also professionally with this work?

Ellen Hendriksen (19:20.558)

Yeah, no, that's great question. So personally, well, okay, here, actually, let's start professionally. Let's do that backwards. I, so okay, a lot of people go into mental health care because of their own mental health challenges. They will have a battle with substance abuse and then become a substance abuse counselor. And I think that is a fantastic path to take because we all need people who can relate to others, who have really walked in their shoes.

and mine was sort of like that, but really it was more in the rear view mirror. I was in grad school and learning about social anxiety and learning how to treat it before I recognized it. And I thought, wait a minute, I sort of, I recognize that in the literature or on paper. I said, that looks like me. Is that, is that the name for what's been happening for 20 something years? And then also when I started working with people with social anxiety,

I recognized it in not just on paper, but in life and I was like, these are my people. okay. This is indeed what this is. And so for me, I ended up in this field and sort of recognized my own journey in retrospect, like in the rear-view mirror. But it kind of ended up in the same place that I am really glad that I can relate and understand and I, you everybody has their own shoes.

they walk in so I've had a different experience than every other one of my clients but I have gotten the feedback that it is nice to have somebody who understands or at least has been through something similar. So that's professionally. then personally I okay so avoidance

can be covert and overt. So overt avoidance is what we usually think about as avoidance. Like we don't show up. So we might not go to the party or we might call in sick on the day that we have to give a presentation. It's just physically being absent. Whereas covert avoidance is you go and you do the thing, but you're sort of in your head, not really present, trying to keep yourself socially and emotionally safe. And that was absolutely

Ellen Hendriksen (21:40.636)

me. So I would, for example, like go to parties in college, but I would stick to who I came with. I would not make eye contact with other people. I wouldn't drink because I didn't want to be out of control. And that was how I kept myself physically there, but really shut out everything that was socially happening around me because I was so anxious. I, for many years as a teenager in college, my wardrobe consisted

primarily of like black, white, and denim because my unconscious goal was to just fade into the background. I remember not being willing to wear shoes that clicked on the floor because I didn't want to draw attention to myself and now, maybe like if this is audio, I'm wearing a bright pink sweater and so I've come a long way but I certainly still have my own socially anxious moments if I'm you know walking into a group of people that

I don't know if I'm in a really unstructured situation where it's not clear what the rules are or what I am supposed to do. You know, I certainly get flares of social anxiety still, but I like to think that I am more willing to try those things and to do things that I value or want to do, even if it means feeling a little bit anxious.

Tim Doyle (23:04.977)

What's your analysis of like, and I don't even know if this is an actual term that can be used, like environmental social anxiety, where if somebody's within, you know, one avenue of life, like let's say, you know, they're a completely different person within their social life and they get along really well with people and they're kind of, you know, not a party animal, but very social, but then they step into their professional environment and it's a completely different type of person. Like how would you...

Ellen Hendriksen (23:27.277)

Sure.

Tim Doyle (23:35.577)

explain that type of breakdown.

Ellen Hendriksen (23:37.39)

100 % yeah, so I think that okay, I guess I have two things to say about that one is that yeah, I think that it because it comes back to that that fear of being revealed and so our reveal can sometimes only be salient in some environments or can for me at least like could change throughout life as the environment changed so For example like in college when social life is super important. I was my fear

that people were going to see that I was a loser. And then when I started my career, it sort of morphed and I was afraid that people were going to see that I was incompetent. And then when I was writing this book actually and had to like cold email intellectual luminaries, I was worried that people were going to see that I was annoying. So like that, the feared reveal can change from situation to situation for sure. And I think with your example, like if somebody maybe is comfortable either at work or in social life, it's because

that reveal is either salient or not. So maybe in one's social life, if you're worried that you're going to appear awkward, that might come out more in unstructured peer-to-peer socializing where it work. If you have a defined role and you know what you're supposed to be doing and maybe you have a workflow or something where you know the rules, that's not that I'm going to be awkward or people are going to see that I'm awkward.

It's just not as salient anymore. So you don't feel that anxiety. So that's That's one thing and then the second thing is I would say because sometimes I will have people like clients ask me about like feeling like a sort of a chameleon or feeling like they have no actual personality this kind of adapt to whatever's around them and I would say well, okay, but what is consistent from situation to situation? There are some things there are some threads that follow

you from hanging out with your friends to being at a party to being at work to being with your family. What are the values and the traits that stay the same no matter what? Because that is what makes you you. And to reflect or journal or think about what is consistent. And that can be very helpful to have something to like a certainty anchor to hold on to you about this is me.

Tim Doyle (26:03.121)

feel like what can help with social anxiety is almost like imagine like, hey, like just try to step outside of yourself for a second and like observe yourself. And that's actually something I want to talk more about is like the observer's eye of social anxiety about the one who's experiencing it. Obviously we know what we're feeling and we're thinking, but from like the observer's perspective, it can be a totally different type of experience and it.

Ellen Hendriksen (26:14.477)

For sure.

Tim Doyle (26:31.025)

completely different type of perception of what's going on with that person. Can you talk more about that?

Ellen Hendriksen (26:36.459)

Yeah, 100%. Okay, so, couple of things. One is that we naturally think that other people are paying attention to what we are paying attention to. So if we are paying attention to the big zit on the end of our nose, we think that other people are paying attention to the big zit on the end of our nose. But that is often not true. That people are paying attention to their own problems or wardrobe malfunctions or the fact that they're hungry or whatever. Everyone is wrapped up in their own lives. That's not to say that

whatever notices, but there's a big gap between reality and perception. So that's one thing. The second thing is that there is a difference between noticing and judging. So yes, people might see us, people might notice what we're doing, or they might even notice the thing that we're afraid will be revealed. They might notice that we're turning a little red as we're talking. They might notice that our voice is shaking. They might notice that we just had a gap, like an awkward silence in conversation, but that doesn't necessarily mean

that they're judging it. It's that, so those of us with social anxiety often assume that the worst-case scenario will come to pass and so we think that if we make a social mistake or

any of our feared reveals, like even peeks out a little tiny bit that we're going to be harshly criticized. And that is often not the case as well. yes, that observer effect feels very strong. It feels like we're being watched and judged and we might be, you know, being observed, but just kind of noticed as just another person in the background or, you know, just, yeah, being a person, not.

being someone who is like willfully out of line. Exactly, exactly.

Tim Doyle (28:22.523)

Yeah, there's no spotlight effect. So we've really laid the groundwork here for what social anxiety is, the common challenges and difficulties that people can go through. And now I'd love to take a step forward. you know, we've talked about how social anxiety, it's a learned thing and would love to dive deep now into, okay, how do we begin to unlearn this then?

Ellen Hendriksen (28:50.573)

Yeah, for sure. And I want to preface that with that even if it's taken 30, 40, whatever, years to develop, it's not going to take that long to unwind. That it's not a one-to-one ratio. And we can often make progress really quickly if we're willing to do the things we're afraid of and do things with a little bit of anxiety.

Tim Doyle (29:16.485)

Awesome, yeah, so I mean, I know a big part of it is the inner critic and shifting our relationship with that. What does that work look like?

Ellen Hendriksen (29:28.365)

Yeah, so, oh my goodness. Okay. Here, tell me a little more. Like, because I could answer this in a number of ways, so, yeah.

Tim Doyle (29:39.174)

I guess just that internal dialogue and that internal voice that is keeping you within that narrative of people are looking at me, people are noticing this, also staying within those avoidance tendencies of like, okay, how do we begin to unravel those things a little?

Ellen Hendriksen (29:50.039)

Mm.

Ellen Hendriksen (30:00.141)

100%, okay. So let's start with the biggest thing we can do, which is to quote Richard Heitberg, who is sort of the father of social anxiety research, is to go forth and do, is to go do the very things that we're afraid of and we don't have to, you know, my.

my favorite analogy is we don't have to do a cannonball into the deep end of the pool. We can sort of inch our way in. We can start small. in fact, our goal is ultimately to push ourselves just a little bit out of our comfort zone, but absolutely not into the, you know, hair standing on and panic attack zone that is not helpful and in fact can do the opposite of what we're trying to do. We're trying to desensitize ourselves to these situations.

ourselves into something that we're really, you know, not ready for or that is, you know, a 10 out of 10 scary, then we could actually end up sensitizing ourselves, which is sort of like the equivalent of burning your tongue. And then after that, anything you drink, even if it's cool water can hurt. So it's not, you know, this isn't, isn't a fatal flaw. Like you can still absolutely come back from sensitization. But my point is that you don't have to go like full tilt right away. Please, you know, kind of go

slowly inch your way in. That is totally fine and probably the better way to go. But regardless to go forth and do the very things you're afraid of, you can do that in a structured way. So oftentimes with clients, I will literally make a list or literally make a hierarchy and we will just work our way through it and start with the things that are sort of ones and twos on that zero to 10 anxiety scale and work our way up. And the magic thing is that

you never really end up doing nines and tens because as you grow your confidence, as you grow your readiness, as you grow your willingness, those nines and tens becomes like sixes and sevens and eights. so that's a nice little bonus. You can also do it on the fly. It doesn't have to be, you know, this rigid hierarchy. And just when you see a moment of something where you feel the, and when I say you, I mean, anyone, just FYI.

Tim Doyle (32:19.462)

Yeah.

Ellen Hendriksen (32:19.631)

And when we see something where, like, know, the classic example is flagging down a waiter for a refill or asking someone in a grocery store, like, hey, do you know where the lemongrass is?

then to do some, these are called exposures on the fly and be able to disprove those two lies of social anxiety that, you know, the lies of the worst case scenario is bound to happen and I can't handle it anyway. And then we're able to not only not reinforce those two lies, which is what happens with avoidance, but to actively chip away at them. So go forth and do. That's the number one thing we can do to overcome the inner critic and the social anxiety.

in general.

Tim Doyle (33:09.093)

Yeah, I mean, do you feel like there's a common mindset and I feel like it's not just within socially anxious people, but just people in general who feel like maybe they're not within the spot of life that they want to be. The common mindset is like, okay, like once I feel better, you know, once I get better, then my life will improve.

Ellen Hendriksen (33:30.926)

100%.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Actually, I'm really glad you brought that up because we are often taught to... Okay, so I like to think about the parallel with like mood and behavior. Like we have to feel like doing something before we do it. We have to feel inspired before we sit down to write a song or create. We have to feel like, you know, going to the gym before we go, lace up our shoes and exercise. And that is actually backwards and that we can

lead with behavior and lead with action. And if we start doing the thing, often, not always, but often, our mood will catch up. then for instance, like inspiration will find us working. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to you force yourself to go for a mental health walk or you force yourself to go to the gym or force yourself to do whatever it is you want to do. And then you are glad you did it. Your mood.

catches up. It's the same thing with...

your readiness or confidence that we have to put action first and then our readiness catches up or then our confidence will catch up. So lead with behavior and ultimately that is easier because behavior is sort of the only thing we can control. We can't really control, I mean we can't actually at all control our feelings. Anyone who has ever been told just relax or calm down or there's nothing to worry about you know like forget it like that you know if we could flip a switch

Ellen Hendriksen (35:02.797)

we would have by now. And we also, you we can control our thoughts a little bit, but ultimately not really. Like my classic example is don't think about a cheeseburger floating above my head. You know, like if we try to repress our thoughts or try not to think about something, that almost guarantees that they will come rebounding back like a beach ball we've pushed underwater. So if we can't control our feelings, we can't really control our thoughts, that leaves us with behavior, and that is something that we can control.

Tim Doyle (35:31.12)

Yeah, it's like what you said about go forth and do, it feels like the mindset needs to be like, okay, I need to stack evidence and I need to stack the data that I can do this because then once I have those actions and I can think about that, then that's what's going to create those good feelings of like, my life is improving here. And to look at that from a different vantage point, you write about this thing called the worry mismatch, which I find interesting, which is, know,

Ellen Hendriksen (35:37.663)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Tim Doyle (36:00.623)

you will feel far worse anticipating your challenges than actually completing them. And I want to bring personal experience back into this as well. Like I've dealt with like what we would say, like, and I'm sure all people have, but like, you know, real stresses and like real like pains within my life. And thankfully got past those. And I feel like

Ellen Hendriksen (36:04.398)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Hendriksen (36:23.096)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Doyle (36:28.347)

What the gift behind that was that it allowed, like when I reminisced on those like past stresses, it allowed me to see the false front of these stresses that really like aren't like I shouldn't be thinking of anymore, where it's like, like this isn't bad. Like if I was able to get through that, like that was really stressful. Like this is nothing now. How would you describe that type of compare and contrast?

experience and how could that help people?

Ellen Hendriksen (37:01.17)

Meaning like I you know if I got through that like I can get through this yeah

Tim Doyle (37:05.189)

Exactly. Or just like, like this was actually, this was an actual stressful situation. Like this was real stress. And now because you have a different way that you think and now like different eyes on the experience, you're able to see the facade of that stress that really doesn't actually exist.

Ellen Hendriksen (37:12.884)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Hendriksen (37:27.518)

Mm-hmm. I see what you're saying. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yeah, so I will often turn this into an exercise with clients where I will have them write down what their anxiety says is gonna happen. Like, what's the, what does your anxiety predict? Like, my boss is gonna be, there's a meeting next Wednesday and my boss is gonna be mad at me. Or I have to, I don't know.

choose a restaurant for this date and they're gonna hate it. It's gonna turn out terribly. And then et cetera, et cetera, et So we write down the predictions of what anxiety says is going to happen and then we go do the thing and then we write down what actually happened. so that aggregated can tell us or give us some evidence that our anxiety is not credible and we're not

to gaslight ourselves. We're trying to build experience that like, hey, like anxiety is anticipatory. And of course, anxiety is going to try to protect us from the worst case scenario. That makes sense. Like if we, you know, see a field of sheep and miss the wolf, like that's, that's not great. We're going to get blindsided. And so of course we're going to zoom in on anything that looks like a wolf and, you know, just assume and try to deal with that scenario ahead of time so that we stay safe. But

I think with the realizing that our anxiety is not credible or what I think you're saying is that if I went through that, I can handle this. Like my capabilities are stronger than I thought or that these situations that that required a lot of grit and a lot of perseverance, like I have that within me and I could handle that. So.

this thing that's coming up by contrast, it's probably not as bad as I think it's going to be, and I probably have the wherewithal to deal with it.

Tim Doyle (39:32.273)

Fascinating probably what happens when you verbalize and write out what you're actually thinking. And it's probably a completely different experience where you're just like, wait, what?

Ellen Hendriksen (39:43.256)

you

Yeah, no, absolutely. And you can add a third column if you want, because sometimes, okay, so sometimes we'll just do prediction and then what actually happened, but sometimes I'll have clients who are learning to trust themselves, like have been sort of taught by either family or bullying or whatever that their instinct or their gut judgment is wrong and that they need to actually worry more about that or that they're doing it wrong. And so we will put in another column for like, what did your gut tell you? Like, what does your intuition tell you? And oftentimes they'll learn not only

but that their anxiety is not credible, but their gut instinct was right all along. And that can be really, really helpful in learning to trust yourself and learning to go with those first gut impulses rather than having to go through all this torture of anxiety.

Tim Doyle (40:31.793)

You write, the main difference between high and low socially anxious individuals is not the effect of anticipatory processing. That's the same no matter who you are. The difference is that the socially anxious among us are more likely to engage in it. Can you further break down that duality there between effect and engage?

Ellen Hendriksen (40:57.407)

Say that one more time. I always have a moment when people quote me back to myself. I'm like, did I write that? What? So sorry, I'm having that moment right now. Tell me again. Yes.

Tim Doyle (41:04.861)

All good.

The main difference between high and low socially anxious individuals is not the effect of anticipatory processing. That's the same no matter who you are. The difference is that the socially anxious among us are more likely to engage in it.

Ellen Hendriksen (41:27.79)

Okay, like the socially anxious among us are more likely to, I'll rephrase it this way, to take those socially anxious thoughts literally and seriously. That we will hear our brains tell us the worst case scenario or believe the high likelihood that we will be revealed or believe in a high likelihood that we'll be revealed. I think we in social

anxiety take, yeah, that anticipation and that fear of being revealed more literally and seriously than folks without social anxiety. A nice parallel might be, this might be getting too into the weeds, but I'll take a stab anyway, in OCD, that's a different diagnosis, but is taking our thoughts, is basically being afraid of our thoughts.

and taking our thoughts too literally and too seriously. So like the classic example, like my hands are contaminated, I need to wash them. Ultimately, that's just a thought, that my hands are contaminated is simply a thought that our brain came up with, it's not necessarily reality, but if we take it really seriously and take it really literally, that causes a lot of distress. And so the parallel there, I think, with social anxiety is that if we...

take the thought, you know, everyone's going to see that I'm awkward really seriously and literally, that's going to change our behavior. We're going to, we're going to hang back. We're going to not join in conversation. We're going to hover on the outside of the group. We're going to scroll through our phone, you know, while in a social situation and sort of check out. And so, but then those behaviors in turn broadcast like the social signal of, don't want to be here or I don't like you people, or, you know, I'm not interested. And that sends the wrong message.

And then through our social signaling, we might actually get sort of forgotten or overlooked or rejected. And then it seems like our fears came true, but really it was this big mix up of taking our thoughts to literally behaving as if they were true. And then that signaled to the people around us that we were not interested in interacting with them.

Tim Doyle (43:50.876)

One of my favorite analyses of yours is also this whole concept behind how we feel isn't how we look. Can you break that down and why we tend to experience the opposite?

Ellen Hendriksen (43:58.348)

Hmm

Ellen Hendriksen (44:03.468)

Yeah, no, so we...

often feel like we wear our heart on our sleeve and that we are sort of there's a there's a bias where we feel like we are transparent like sort of like a jellyfish and we can everybody can see all of our inner workings and there have been really interesting studies on this where and I think I know in the book we had there's a picture a side-by-side picture of a gentleman who in one picture is thinking that he's feeling very

socially anxious, he thinks his face looks weird, he has very high physiological and cognitive anxiety, and in the next, the second photograph, he feels great. He is engaged in whatever's happening and is like, yeah, feeling physiologically and cognitively calm, and it is very striking because those two photos look exactly the same. So from the outside,

we often feel like people can see what we are feeling like on the inside, but oftentimes that is not the case and we don't actually wear our anxiety on our sleeve. So how we can take advantage of that is to...

So I have mixed feelings about the phrase fake it till you make it because I know that can get really overused. But if we think about fake it till you make it in terms of adopting the posture and the social signaling of someone who is confident, then that can send a message to the people around us and send a message to ourselves. It creates two feedback loops. It creates a feedback loop to folks around us because we might

Ellen Hendriksen (46:00.663)

be appearing with our shoulders back and our head held high and that sends a message that this person feels great even if or this person is confident even if we certainly don't feel like that inside. Again, no one can tell the difference but they'll treat us as if we're feeling confident but I think the bigger feedback loop that's more important is adopting the posture of someone who is confident sends a message to ourselves because when we see ourselves

doing something we start to believe we can. And so it's not even really faking it per se, it is again adopting the posture and gestures or whatever of somebody who actually is confident. And when we do that, again, that confidence catches up. So that was a little bit of a muddled answer, but I think it got to the heart of what you were asking.

Tim Doyle (46:51.421)

Another phrase that I like to use instead of fake it till you make it is act as if. I think it's, so I'll use that one.

Ellen Hendriksen (46:56.737)

That's great. I love that. Perfect. Wonderful. I'm going to steal that from you.

Tim Doyle (47:03.549)

So social anxiety, obviously a very, it keeps you internalized. It keeps you in that internal state where you're just in that constant thinking mode and just staying stuck within yourself. How can we begin to break out of that and actually switch where you talk about the importance of turning outward?

Ellen Hendriksen (47:11.063)

Yes.

Ellen Hendriksen (47:14.903)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Hendriksen (47:26.121)

Absolutely. Yeah, we can try to turn our attention inside out. When we're in a socially anxious moment, our attention naturally turns inward and we start to self monitor and we start to overthink things. And that's when we start to think things like, what should I do with my hands? Or like, maybe I'll, maybe I'll look more casual if I stand this way or, did you, am I boring her? Like, ugh, like I hope what I said, you know, wasn't offensive. And then as we turn inward and self monitor, our anxiety goes up.

And also the more self-focused we are, the more our shame goes up. So it's a double whammy. But when we turn our attention outward and say we're in a conversation and we focus on the person we're talking to or we listen closely to the words that they're saying and basically pay attention to anything besides ourselves, ideally we pay attention to the task at hand. So that conversation or maybe the class that we're in or the meeting that we're in or the party that we're

at if we turn our attention outward and look around and listen to what's happening around us our anxiety will naturally decrease. It's not going to go to zero but it's a really easy way to have that anxiety decrease and then when we're paying attention to the moment we're more likely to be able to respond in real time to respond to what's actually happening because when our attention is turned inward we actually miss out on what

happening around us and we don't get to get real feedback which in turn can make us more anxious. So it's a long way of saying yeah turn your attention outward. Honestly if you pay attention to anything except yourself, cool. Ideally pay attention to the task at hand which you want to be paying attention to.

Tim Doyle (49:14.813)

I like how you also bring nuance to social anxiety. And I think this could be readily apparent for a lot of people is how social anxiety doesn't necessarily need to mean just a fear or an avoidance or an incapability of connecting with people. can actually mean, no, like I am very social and I can connect with people very easily, but

It's the depth of that connection that can waver. Can you talk more about that? guess people who, like I said, hey, I am a very social person, but the depth of the connection doesn't feel there.

Ellen Hendriksen (49:48.666)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yep.

Ellen Hendriksen (50:01.227)

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so this is where we can bring in perfectionism because what often, we could talk for days about this, but in perfectionism, what happens is we will, okay, so let me back up. So social anxiety and perfectionism are at the very least siblings. I think perfectionism actually lies at the heart of social anxiety. And in perfectionism, there's a tendency to do what's called perfectionism.

perfectionistic self-presentation, which is that we are willing to show people what is going well and we hide what we think is going poorly. And that maps on to social anxiety really well in the sense of trying to hide or perceive fatal flaws and what we think people are going to judge and reject about us. We're trying to stay socially safe. This makes total sense. So totally valid, absolutely reasonable. And when we only show people

good and hide what we're struggling with or what we are like our challenges or you what we do poorly then they don't really they don't get to see all of us and then what happens also is that

we are harder to connect with if we only show what's going well. We're sort of unrelatable. We come across as maybe superhuman rather than human or as sort of one dimensional or like just less interesting. see, only seeing perfection, you know, nobody really finds that compelling. And so what is relatable is a little bit of vulnerability. And when we share with others things that

that we find difficult or are struggling with or otherwise open us up potentially to criticism or judgment, but we take that leap of faith and we say, hey, you know, take a look under my rug. Here are the dust bunnies. We send two messages. One is I trust you. So I trust you to see some of my mess and not to judge me. And two,

Ellen Hendriksen (52:21.079)

We are the same, that opening up and showing someone a little bit of our problems says, you know...

We're all here together in the human club. This is not some sort of mentor mentee relationship or like coach player relationship. We are equal. And those two things, trust and equality are the bedrock of any healthy relationship. So if we find that we're having a hard time getting closer to others, what we can do is to lead through behavior and to try to ask for advice, ask for help,

say, you know, hey, I want to share something with you. I want to get your thoughts on this. not even vent, se. Vent, complain. Say what we're struggling with and show some of the less perfect human side of us to people we want to be closer to. Don't do this indiscriminately like with your boss, but to someone you would like to be closer to. Take that leap of faith. And then, and then,

see what happens from there. you get engagement and you get reciprocity, like, you showed me under your rug, here, I'll show you under my rug, then you can keep going and that brings you closer. But if you don't get reciprocity or you get, that's cool, or that sucks, man, sorry, then stop. So you can figure it out in real time how much to reveal and whether to push it deeper.

Tim Doyle (53:59.166)

And I think that gets into an important idea that social anxiety and these socially anxious feelings, these aren't things to negate or combat or try to numb, but more so these are things to work with and dance with. How do we turn social anxiety into something that feels like, hey, this is a tool that I can.

use in my favor rather than a hindrance.

Ellen Hendriksen (54:30.027)

Yeah, for sure. mean, social anxiety comes bundled with quite a few superpowers. So it is a package deal. And people with social anxiety are often quite empathetic. We're often good listeners. We're often very conscientious. Perfectionism comes out of that as well. Conscientiousness is the tendency to be responsible and diligent. It's exactly who you want in a friend, somebody who you can rely on, who will listen to you, who will be there for you. It is, I'd like to say sometimes,

It's the least sexy superpower, but conscientiousness is been shown by research to be the number one trait for both objective and subjective success in life. So if you're going to choose a personality trait, choose conscientiousness. And if we've got some social anxiety, we already have some of that in us. So that's a good sign. But I think, I'm not really answering your question here, but to be on a little bit of a soapbox, I think there is a popular

ethos to not care what other people think. And I think that's the advice that is often given to people with social anxiety. And I would like to challenge that a little bit and to say to not let go of caring deeply about people. I think not caring what people think. I get what people are saying, like don't worry if they judge you or don't worry if they criticize you. But I think that can often come off sort of as disdainful or hostile. so

I would want to bring that back and say, please do double down on caring deeply, on being conscientious, on caring about the people who are close to you. And not necessarily caring about judgment or criticism, but do care about people. Don't let that go. And I think that's an important thing to hold onto, even in social anxiety.

Tim Doyle (56:24.513)

those empathetic feelings, those empathetic thoughts, the way that you interact with people, it seems like, all right, just bring that towards yourself now then.

Ellen Hendriksen (56:32.991)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, absolutely. Yes, that's a nice way to wrap it up.

Tim Doyle (56:37.295)

Ellen, it's been great talking with you today. Where can people go to learn more about you? Anything else you'd like to share?

Ellen Hendriksen (56:44.865)

Sure, yeah, the place I post most often is Substack. So my newsletter is called How to Be Good to Yourself When You're Hard on Yourself. And so we talk about social anxiety and perfectionism and basically that's the intersection of anxiety and human connection. So there's a lot there. And then my first book on social anxiety is called How to Be Yourself. And then I have a more recent one also on perfectionism and self-criticism called How to Be Enough.

find those wherever books or audiobooks are sold.

Tim Doyle (57:18.223)

Awesome, great talking with you today.

Ellen Hendriksen (57:20.097)

Thank you so much. You ask great questions.