Pod Insights The Psychology of your 20s Overcoming your fear of being perceived (rerun) About this episode Our fear of being perceived is more than just social anxiety, its a real phobia around being scrutinised, observed and primarily judged by others. It's also greatly limiting your potential and ability to be your true self. But there is a way through, there is a way to escape the constant fixation on what others are thinking about you. In today's episode, we discuss:
The origins and effects of scopophobia How our fear of being perceived is both a social and specific phobia Why do we worry about what other people think? Perfectionism and our fear of being perceived The impact of early childhood experiences Three mental shifts to overcome your fear of being perceived Listen now for all that and more!
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2:43 Jemma Sbeg? Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode. Today's episode though, you may have already noticed is a rerun. So over the next two weeks, I am putting out some of my best episodes from the last four years of almost non-stop podcasting as I just take some time away to launch my debut book, Person in Progress, A Roadmap to the Psychology of Your Twenties. Do not fret, I will be back on the 29th of April, but I just wanted to give my book a little bit of extra love these next two weeks because it's a big deal and I'm not going to talk about it too much.
3:26 Jemma Sbeg? I'm sure you're just here to listen to the podcast and probably sick of me talking about it, but I just want to say thank you. I want to say a huge thank you for allowing me to write this book and put it out in the world. This is only possible because of you all, because of you guys, the listeners. Literally, that's it. That's the only reason I'm able to do this and I've wanted to be an author since I was five, 20 years later, you guys made that happen for me. So just thank you, thank you so much. I would obviously love it if you could preorder it, buy it, gift it to a friend, but you've already done so much and I just feel honoured to have had this opportunity. Most of all, I'm just really pumped for you guys to read it.
4:11 Jemma Sbeg? I hope that you learn something. I'm sure if you love the podcast, you will love Person in Progress as well, but it's a really exciting time and. The main feeling I have right now is one of gratitude. So, thank you so much. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy this rerun of one of my favourite all time episodes.
4:35 Jemma Sbeg? Hello everybody and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties. The podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.
4:54 Jemma Sbeg? Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our twenties. Worrying about what other people think about us can take up a lot of mental real estate. We kind of know that we shouldn't care, we know that we are loved, we know that no one is really watching us that closely. But for some of us, it's not really a choice. We are overwhelmed by this deep, persistent fear of being perceived. We're constantly aware of those invisible judgements that others might be making.
5:38 Jemma Sbeg? What parts of us they might not like, who we might offend if we say the wrong thing, who we make cringe. And it keeps us in this place of self denial, denial of our true selves, of our potential, of our ambitions, of our authenticity. And today I want to talk about it. Because it's a fear that is definitely not spoken about enough, despite being something that a lot of us in our twenties and beyond manage on a daily basis. Being in this decade of life, it comes with a lot of insecurity for sure, you know. It's our first decade of adulthood and we're normally lost, we're lonely, maybe we're trying to fit in.
6:21 Jemma Sbeg? And this fear of being perceived feeds on these worries to make us feel even more out of place and insecure. What you may not know is that there is a lot more to be said about this than just the typical explanation that we get of social anxiety or low self-confidence. Our fear of being perceived has its roots in early experiences of social exclusion, bullying, even perfectionism and how our brains process social and emotional information. Learning about this really helps us accept this reality that has kind of been thrust on us, right? And with that knowledge comes power, the power to kind of change the thought loop that keeps us fearful and withdrawn.
7:06 Jemma Sbeg? And when you break down the irrational and fear-dependent thoughts that keep us trapped by other people's potential judgments, a huge weight is really lifted. And that's really what I want for you. We're also going to discuss three powerful mental shifts that I've used that are backed by research and psychology that can help you overcome your fear of being perceived. From playing mind games with your mind games to de-centering the opinions of others through exposure and also applying one of the greatest cognitive tricks of all time to essentially stop your anxiety about other people's opinions before they even begin.
7:48 Jemma Sbeg? There is so much to talk about and I also want to explore what can happen when we do this. What is the reality of being free from our fear of being perceived? So much becomes possible. I just think it's something that a lot of us can't even imagine, but I kind of want to show you what that might look like. So there is a lot to unpack in this episode and I know from hearing from all of you that this is not uncommon in the slightest. So for all of you who are managing this, dealing with this, this episode is for you to get that clarity, to feel seen, to know the psychology and of course to overcome it.
8:30 Jemma Sbeg? So without further ado, let's get into how you can overcome your fear of being perceived.
8:41 Jemma Sbeg? Our fear of being perceived really comes down to this irrational anxiety around being observed and scrutinized by others. It's kind of in the name really, but this fear is also known as scopeophobia, and that comes from the Greek word scope, to be examined, and of course, phobia, to fear. Anytime something contains the word phobia in it, we know that what's really happening below the surface is anxiety. There is a dysregulated response to a persistent irrational thought or worry. You might say, you know, okay, scopeophobia, yeah, it has its own name, but isn't this just social anxiety? And you would be totally
9:23 Jemma Sbeg? right for thinking that. The fear of being perceived and social anxiety often go hand in hand. But this is more than simply a social phobia around wanting to avoid being seen by others. It's also a specific phobia, and specific phobias surround an extreme fear of a specific situation that poses little to no danger, but makes people really, really anxious. The thing is, your fear of being perceived can be isolated to just a single environment. Like, you may have no trouble public speaking, hosting parties, even being seen by strangers on the street, but when it comes to dating, you are incredibly fearful
10:05 Jemma Sbeg? of what people might think of you on your first date, or on dating apps. So you avoid those situations altogether. That's a specific trigger for your phobia of being perceived. Or you may be really confident in every other setting other than in the workplace or at the gym. That's why this fear is, can be very specific in nature. It's at this point that it's probably important to note that there are kind of two versions or two varieties to our fear of being perceived. There is the fear of being physically perceived, taking up space, being seen by others, which is probably the most common. And then there is the fear of being emotionally perceived, which has more to do with being seen deeply
10:49 Jemma Sbeg? and intimately by someone else on a more... Kind of feelings based level, it's less common, but it's still a really difficult reality to believe that if anyone were to truly see you and your character and to know you, they probably wouldn't wanna be around you anymore. Physical, like our fear of physical perception is more around people making assumptions. Oftentimes, though, they they kind of go hand in hand because perception alone isn't scary, right? It's the judgment that comes next. And that is where kind of the emotional element comes in. It's not that we kind of think that someone looking at us is inherently dangerous, that
11:30 Jemma Sbeg? their eyes are gonna like burn holes in our skin, even if it might feel that way sometimes. It's what we know comes second. People make instantaneous and snap calls around what they think someone is like within seconds or minutes. And perception is not objective. There is not one clear way of seeing everything and everyone. It's subjective. So we can't control what they think about us, whether that is correct or not. And that is often what is really at the root of this experience. We don't actually fear the act of being perceived physically, we fear being judged, and we fear
12:13 Jemma Sbeg? the unknowns that are contained in those judgments. And here is where we kind of return to that distinction between fear and anxiety. Fear is for the present and anxiety is for the possibility. That's where all the fun is in for our anxiety, right? Our anxiety likes to try to figure things out that we may never know, and that unknown is so scary. We catastrophize based on the worst case scenario rather than what is most likely, which is that people pay a lot more attention to themselves than anyone else. Most people are actually fairly kind with their judgments, and even if they aren't, We're still gonna be okay. We can survive someone not liking us based on limited information.
12:58 Jemma Sbeg? We can survive someone not liking us based on their own insecurities because it's not about us anymore. But let's kind of track back for a second because there is something crucial I've missed here. That is, what is it exactly about those invisible judgments? That are so scary for people with a fear of being perceived? Yes, it is the fact that it is an unknown which our anxiety thrives on. But it also is a little bit more than that. Social judgment holds a lot of power because of our innate ingrained fear of social disapproval. We don't want others not to like us. We don't want them to think that there's something wrong with us.
13:39 Jemma Sbeg? We don't want them to walk away from meeting us or hanging out and go and say terrible things that might ruin our reputation or destroy certain relationships. This is really the case for a few reasons. Firstly, we kind of fear others' opinions out of a need to protect our self-esteem and to continue to validate ourselves. We don't want people not to like us because that might hurt our sense of self-worth. I think we all know what it's like to be confronted with an ugly truth about what someone else really thinks about us. If it's a former friend calling you cringe, an ex thinking that you're lame or unattractive. You know, some asshole on the internet or from school, whatever.
14:24 Jemma Sbeg? When someone makes a snide comment about your looks, about any feature of you, that really hurts. And we want to avoid that hurt and we want to avoid the damage that it does to our self-esteem. So we begin to fear those judgments as a way to avoid them. But let's dissect that even further. If someone doesn't like you, then what? Well, for our anxious mind, if people don't like us, they think we're unattractive, annoying, whatever your primary insecurity is around being perceived.
14:57 Jemma Sbeg? We worry that as a secondary consequence of that, we will lose really valuable relationships or opportunities for connection. That's a really primal instinct you have going on there. You don't want to be left out of the group. You want to avoid isolation and loneliness at all costs because our ancient brain knows that could harm us in the long run. Basically, this is our fear of rejection, kind of working in tandem with our desire for social acceptance and belonging. But actually, that ends up driving a wedge between us and other people anyways. Because we end up, you know, letting this fear
15:39 Jemma Sbeg? drive us to self-isolate, drive us to not put ourselves out there, to not really connect with people. Which means that although our fear of being perceived might in our brains be protecting us from being embarrassed, from being excluded, from being teased or mocked, and therefore protect our social relationships. Actually, it's having um the counter effect. And it's meaning that we tend to close ourselves off from those opportunities anyways. It's like if you begin to expect that people won't like you or will immediately think the worst of you, why give them the power to even do that when you can stop that from happening in the first place by never showing up?
16:25 Jemma Sbeg? You can't be perceived if you're not present. And so we tend to reduce our anxiety and our fear by reducing exposure to the trigger, which is other people or situations where we think we might be uncomfortable. I think we know all too well that this avoidance typically backfires as avoidance always does when it comes to phobic behavior or anxiety. The less exposure you have, the more power your fear has because it begins to make everything seem worse in your brain. And you have no lived experience to prove otherwise. Like in this example, right? You believe that if people could perceive you, they would say something mean or cruel or would think that you were embarrassing.
17:10 Jemma Sbeg? And that would result in them not liking you, bad mouthing you, having a negative judgment. The outcome of that is super scary. You can't handle that possibility. And so you never let it be the case. But in your efforts to reduce your anxiety, which is a totally natural thing to do, because anxiety obviously makes us uncomfortable. We actually never question or give ourselves the opportunity to disprove this irrational hypothetical. Worse than that, we never give ourselves the opportunity to prove to ourselves that we are capable of feeling judged and pushing forwards anyway. We never get to prove to ourselves that we are
17:54 Jemma Sbeg? bigger than what someone may or may not think. We can experience our worst fear and we can survive it and we can not just survive, but it can fuel us and it can make us bigger and better. And in some ways, it actually reduces the initial fear that we had. So what are the consequences of this? Well, I've kind of seen it in myself, to be honest. In the past, I remember self abandoning a lot, denying my true self. Kind of the opportunity to be vibrant and present because the fear was louder than my impulse to express myself and it made me very, very small and very, very sad. At first, I remember this very clearly, like I'd be
18:38 Jemma Sbeg? really excited to, I don't know, post a picture online or to express my opinion or to go to this party and talk to people. Or even just like create something cool and interesting and share it. And then this fear would infiltrate and make all those positive feelings and all that anticipation. It would wilt it. It would make it really, really small. And you push down the parts of you that you think are too much or that stick out a little bit too much. You avoid situations that you probably would have enjoyed. And you deny yourself opportunities. Because a lot of opportunities do come with perception. The more successful you become, the more passionate you become. More people begin to notice you.
19:24 Jemma Sbeg? And of course, if you can't handle that perception, why ever put yourself in a position where you could be praised or you could be seen? I think simply put, the desire to fit in and the paralyzing fear of being disliked. It undermines our ability to pursue the lives we wanna create. The hypothetical views of of people we don't even care about, let alone know, take on more power than our own intentions and our own dreams. It's really interesting because as one person put it to me, it's kind of like you put a wall between you and the world. And you both resent that wall, but you also rely on it at the same time.
20:10 Jemma Sbeg? At an extreme, our fear of being perceived can cause us to panic and experienced heightened levels of social anxiety, terror, dread, shortness of breath, shaking, the urge to go and hide. You know, and it's often in response to specific situations like being introduced to new people, being in large group settings where you feel like you're one out, being the centre of attention. So a question I've definitely asked myself, and I'm sure you may have as well. Why do some people have this fear and others don't? There are people who are just not afraid in the slightest
20:52 Jemma Sbeg? to exist as their fullest and truest selves, and we really admire them for that. I'm sure we always have, we all have someone in mind right now. Maybe it's like a pop culture figure, like, I don't know, Chapel Rohn or like a performer or an idol of ours or even a friend who just seriously has no, just doesn't have that wall, doesn't have that wall between them and the world. So why exactly is it the case that we do? Where does this fear, where does this worry of being perceived truly come from?
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24:02 Jemma Sbeg? Firstly, our fear of being perceived is really closely linked to, of course, social anxiety. And anxiety in general, as most social and specific phobias are. What I really want people to know is that social anxiety is more than just shyness. It's more than just introversion. It's actually a complex difference in how our brains are reacting to our environment, including social interactions and specifically how they're wired to absorb this information and the meaning that they apply to it. Mainly, social anxiety and with its scorpophobia is attributed to a dysfunction in the hippocampus, the amygdala and the areas of our brain that process emotion.
24:43 Jemma Sbeg? Meaning that there is a lot more activity in those specific regions, making us feel more attuned to small moments, small cues that are, that are kind of seen through like a fearful lens. That's the easiest way to put it. There are a lot of neural mechanisms that are simply different between people with social anxiety and people with scorpophobia and people without it. And those neural mechanisms are caused by both genetics and our environment. But I think it's important that we acknowledge the neural and biological mechanisms controlling this fear at the very top of this because especially when maybe we encounter someone who just doesn't quite understand
25:29 Jemma Sbeg? where our fear comes from. They really need to know, and I hope that they do know, that a lot of it is not really within our choice. It's not something that we have opted into. Actually, it's the way that we are built. It's why we also kind of see people who care so little about others' opinions and they possess zero self-awareness because they don't have that same neural makeup and that those same kind of cross activations between different regions of their brains that mean when they see a social situation, when they see the potential for being judged, their fear centers kind of light up, they're hyper-aware.
26:10 Jemma Sbeg? There is none of that going on and it's kind of like the opposite side of the coin here. Like it's equally as confronting to see someone who genuinely doesn't care to a fault. But scorpophobia can also arise from something really upsetting or traumatic that has happened at some point in your life, especially during childhood, especially around bullying, exclusion, isolation, public humiliation. Those events and situations can be actually quite shocking and very intense and so they leave a lifelong imprint and they cause behavioural and emotional changes.
26:51 Jemma Sbeg? Actually, in some forty to sixty percent of cases of scorpophobia, people are able to trace their fear back to a catalyst event or a specific time in their lives when they were really going through it, when they were really socially ostracized or isolated. These situations can make us increasingly hyper-aware firstly of how others see us because we're trying to anticipate a situation where our biggest fears could be realised again. We already know what this feels like, we didn't like it. And so we try and avoid anything that reminds us of a previous time when we were judged,
27:34 Jemma Sbeg? when we were bullied, when we were excluded. And I do want to highlight bullying as an example here because it's definitely one that resonates with me a lot as like a kid who was bullied. I know I always say that I think children like that actually end up becoming quite interesting people because they learn to not. I guess not rely on the external validation of others, but it can also make us go the complete opposite way, where that external validation of others becomes all we can think about. If you went through childhood, knowing what it felt like to be teased constantly, to have those whispers kind of follow you around,
28:12 Jemma Sbeg? online, in person, and then you tried your hardest to avoid that experience by wearing the clothes that made you fit in, by staying out of the way, by appeasing your bullies, and still finding that you couldn't escape it. That pain is not something that you easily forget. And so even as you age, it doesn't go away. Memories like that are interesting because from an evolutionary perspective, they're meant to help us, but they also contribute to trauma and PTSD. And in a paper published in two thousand and eleven, researchers showed that harmful, painful memories typically actually have greater recall
28:53 Jemma Sbeg? than positive memories from around the same time. So it's not like you can just forget and move on. That's like saying, oh, can you please forget what your best friend's name is? Can you forget what your first day of school was like? Can you forget your graduation? Can you forget the many times that you didn't feel like you belong? Can you forget the way that people's judgments made you feel? Of course, we can't. It's ingrained in us. It's a permanent kind of fixture of our past and in some ways of our identity. The behaviors surrounding our fear of being perceived, scrutinized, judged, are actually, based on this understanding, they become defensive based on previous experiences.
29:36 Jemma Sbeg? The possibility of going through that situation once more is so confronting that we learn what we need to do to avoid it from happening. And often, how we avoid it from happening is to just avoid social situations. We've kind of already talked about how that can sustain this fear of being perceived even longer. But you know, if it's all you're trying to do to survive, if it makes you feel better in the moment, sometimes it's hard not to do those things. It's hard not to, you know, both deeply crave social approval and also be deeply terrified of it. I hope that explanation makes some sense. I also read a really fascinating article from disability rights activists that
30:21 Jemma Sbeg? people with physical disabilities are also more likely to have a deep rooted fear of being perceived because of again, past experiences of being mocked, being pointed at, feeling those eyes on them in public. Wherever they go, that constant recognition that you're being watched or that people have these private thoughts about you, I just, that would be so much to manage. It would just be exhausting and very, very loud. The final thing that we have to briefly discuss here is actually perfectionism, which you may be surprised to hear come up in this kind of episode, but what we know about the fear of being perceived and what we know about perfectionism
31:05 Jemma Sbeg? actually confirms that they are related in some very intuitive ways. Perfectionists set extremely high standards for themselves and they are often preoccupied with avoiding mistakes, either social in nature, maybe academic, whatever it is that they are primarily fixated on. But this also causes them to become quite obsessed by flaws or imperfections that they believe will be noticed and criticized by others. The desire to appear perfect can create a very intense anxiety about being in the spotlight, even if being in the spotlight is just being around other people,
31:48 Jemma Sbeg? feeling like their eyes are on you, feeling like you have their attention, feeling like they are going to find that thing that you already know is wrong with you. Actually, this really interesting article published in Psychology Today, which I feel like by now you guys know is my favorite place for sources on this. Actually, it was published earlier this year and it notes that a fear of judgment or disapproval from others is actually the primary contributing factor to people managing perfectionism. And it's also one of the primary contributing factors to people with scopolophobia. So in terms of like, if you were to make an organizational chart, or I guess like a
32:31 Jemma Sbeg? a way of categorizing different things that we can go, be going through mentally, different fears, different conditions, different whatever, scopolophobia and perfectionism.
32:43 Jemma Sbeg? And a fear of judgment, all of those three things sit very, very closely together. They're probably only delineated by like a few percentiles. Let's take a step back though, because we've kind of been circling around this question for the entire episode, but why does it even really matter? Why do people's opinions really matter? And I know we talked about social disapproval. I know we talked about belonging. I know we talked about perfectionism, about rejection. But truly, how life changing is the opinion of someone we may never speak to again? Or how life changing is that? How, what does that really have to do with us? How is that really going to hurt us?
33:26 Jemma Sbeg? What is it about those judgments that feel so important to us? Because you know, if you wouldn't invite someone into your house, why do we let them into our head? The burden of this fear is, is kind of thrust so heavily onto us. Whilst the people who, you know, are judging us, maybe not judging us, they kind of just get to go along their merry way. They never know what we're feeling, what we're changing, how we're hiding to be less seen. And it's, it's costing you your life. And when I say your life, I mean, it's costing you your freedom, your potential, it's costing you joy, relationships, opportunities, even if it's not something that you're consciously choosing. So what we really need to discuss is how we can break through that wall that is keeping
34:11 Jemma Sbeg? us separated from a confident, self-assured, liberated life, where the opinions of others kind of glide off us, they don't take up as much mental real estate. And I really want to help you with that. So I'm going to give you three powerful exercises and mental shifts that you can try today to overcome your fear of being perceived. After this short break, stay with us.
34:41 Jemma Sbeg? There's this moment in your twenties where you realise, oh, no one is double checking my finances for me anymore. It's just me, my bank account and a growing list of, wait, I forgot I subscribed to that. And honestly, that can feel overwhelming. So you could look into Bank of America Advantage Safe Balance Banking. It's perfect for this stage of life where you're figuring things out as you go. There are no overdraft item fees, and if you are under 25, there's no monthly maintenance fee, which just makes it easier to stay on track. What stands out is that it doesn't try to overcomplicate things. It's not about being perfect with money. It's about having a system that helps you feel a little more in control. What's more, with Safe Balance Banking, you could
35:25 Jemma Sbeg? enrol in B of A Rewards and enjoy cash back deals plus fraud and identity monitoring. If you are in that phase of, I'm trying to get my life together financially, Bank of America Advantage Safe Balance Banking is a really solid place to start. Learn more at bofa.com/simplebanking. Member FDIC.
35:48 Jemma Sbeg? I've been really trying to prioritise my health in a realistic way this year, and something that has kept me really motivated is my Whoop. I am such a data person, which is why I love Whoop, because I can genuinely see why my body feels differently depending on the day, why I'm running differently, why I'm maybe less focused. Whoop effortlessly tracks my sleep, it tracks my strain, my recovery, my stress, and most importantly, my overall health. And it just gives me all that data and all those patterns so I can make better decisions, which includes knowing when to go easy and knowing when to go hard. New members can try Whoop with a 30-day free trial before committing to a membership.
36:27 Jemma Sbeg? That's join.whoop.com/psychology for your free month of Whoop.
36:32 Jemma Sbeg? This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over fourteen years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is, lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favourite gym clothing at gymshark.com.
37:10 Jemma Sbeg? Our fear of being perceived is built on a foundation of irrational thoughts, as most anxious patterns are. The irrational thoughts associated with our scopolophobia sound like this. Everyone is constantly judging me. People will remember every awkward thing that I do. If they don't like me, my life is over. If they don't think I'm funny, charming, good looking, they'll tell everyone and I'll lose all my friends. If these people at the party judge me, no one will speak to me anymore. These beliefs have probably helped you in the past stay away from situations that you thought were threatening or made you uncomfortable. But now they're just not useful anymore. And you know that because
37:55 Jemma Sbeg? you're listening to this episode. The easiest way to deal with anxious thoughts like these is not to try and suppress them, ignore them, or even overthink your way out of them. It's to play the game, the game of hypothetical that your anxiety is so great at. Every time you think that someone is judging you, tell yourself that they are actually admiring you, because why can't that be the case? What makes either of those scenarios more likely than the other? The fear-based scenario feels more likely because we're used to thinking that it's true. But but is it, you know, you might think, well, based on past experiences it is.
38:39 Jemma Sbeg? But how many more times have people been able to perceive you? And really loved your outfit, or thought that you were really interesting? Or loved your smile and just not said anything? How many more times have people just not noticed you at all? Never thought about you again, the same way that you have noticed people? Or not noticed people and never thought about them again? There is this idea in psychology that we pay more attention to the situations that already confirm bias for us. The bias in this situation is everyone is judging me. But it actually means that we don't see the full spectrum of all the other times that hasn't been the case.
39:22 Jemma Sbeg? It doesn't matter, you know, whether that person is judging you or not. If you get into the habit of playing mind games with your mind games, it can be as simple as hearing that thought pop up, visualizing it and having a laugh at yourself, like, that's so funny, what a funny piece of false news my brain is trying to tell me. I have no evidence to suggest that in this moment, that person is judging me more than they are admiring me. More than they think that I am cool or funny or lovely. So that is our first mental shift, recognizing that you may think you know what's running through someone's head, but maybe you don't. And as always, quite frankly, it's none of your business. That's their problem.
40:04 Jemma Sbeg? And what kind of a sad, frustrating life it would be if this person were to be judging you, not really knowing you, and if for their whole life, all they do is just see the worst in someone. If that is what that person's reality is, how miserable would that be? How just plain dark to see someone existing and to just have your mind immediately find something to scrutinize. What I'm trying to get at is that it says a lot more about them and they have a lot of bigger things to worry about than what you may or may not be doing, because they're. Play their head is probably a really dark, insecure place and what a sad reality for them.
40:47 Jemma Sbeg? I also find it useful if I'm still being met with the persistent thought that they're judging me, that they don't like me. To instead give that, to just kind of look at that hypothetical assessment. And instead of being like, I'm going to internalize their potential hatred of me. Their potential disgust or embarrassment of me, I'm going to assume that that's what they're feeling and that's fine. And then I'm just going to flood them with unconditional love. In my mind, I'm going to look at this person, I'm going to perceive, think about this person.
41:27 Jemma Sbeg? And I'm just going to imagine just shooting, like just literally covering them. In this big blanket of empathy and love from me. And it really does help you be like, I don't know, I guess in my mind, I'm just like, it helps you. See that this person might be thinking the worst of you and still going beyond not caring. Being so defiant that you still like decide to give them love. And you still decide to give them empathy for what they're going through. And that act of being the bigger person makes you realize that this person is not inherently.
42:08 Jemma Sbeg? Better than you, not inherently, um, doesn't inherently know more than you, their opinion doesn't inherently. Mean more than yours because you're still here showing this great generous gift of loving them. Despite the fact that they could be really cruel to you in their mind. If that isn't working, I have another mental shift of you and it's called the yes and shift. And no, it's not the Ariana Grande song, but honestly, it's kind of a similar theme. The thing about anxious thoughts is that they feel quite real. Because they are like almost identical to a real fear. But they're incomplete.
42:50 Jemma Sbeg? They aren't fully formed and that's what causes them to feel so scary. This is the example I always give. It's like if you were to walk into a house. And it looks like a house from the outside, but the kitchen and the bedroom had no walls. You'd feel really exposed in a house like that. And the same goes for an anxious thought. When you walk into an anxious thought and it's not entirely complete or real. You feel exposed to the possibilities. That could fill those gaps, like being ostracized, being criticized. Here's how we overcome that. We overcome that. By filling in those gaps ourselves before we let our anxiety do it for us. Using our yes and method.
43:35 Jemma Sbeg? So say you're at a party and you think someone is smirking at you or your behavior or cringing at you. Talking to their friends about you. In your brain, everything is probably alive and rushing and scary and freaky. And you're probably thinking, they don't like me. Now, what I want you to do here is accept that, yeah, maybe they don't like you. And then I want you to add an and onto that sentence. They don't like me and I'll be okay anyways. They don't like me and I know my friends love me, so I'm not too fussed by that. They don't like me and I'll never see them again. So really, that's fine by me. Don't let your fear.
44:17 Jemma Sbeg? Grab onto that emptiness, that unknown space, that uncertainty. And spiral. Because if you let your fear take over the and. It will sound something like, they don't like me and that means that everyone at this party doesn't like me. And that means that maybe I shouldn't leave. So you kind of get where that ends up taking you. It takes you into a place of withdrawal and isolation, meaning you never face the fear. But what we really need to do is condition our mind. To make peace with our fear of being perceived. By replacing the worst case scenario that we so quickly jump to. With a reaffirming statement or conclusion. That really builds us up. That de-centers the opinion of this other person.
45:02 Jemma Sbeg? And that makes us feel confident. In whatever circumstance is about to occur. Our final mental shift that we're going to discuss, I've come to call the mastery shift. And it's based on principles of exposure therapy that are very often used to decentitise decentitise people with phobia from their fears. And it's used for things like a fear of snakes, a fear of planes, fear of bees. And we can use it for a fear of being perceived. So this is what I want you to do. I want you to make a list of ten things that your fear of being perceived is preventing you from doing. And I want you to order that list from the thing that you are most afraid to do,
45:46 Jemma Sbeg? that you cannot even imagine doing in a million years, to the thing you feel a little bit worried about, but you could try tomorrow with enough support, with enough affirmations, with a really good dose of confidence. So I'll I'll give you some examples of what could be on that list. Starting really small, it could be um recording like a short video of yourself talking about a topic and watching it back. It could be posting something you really want to post on social media on a private account, wearing an outfit that's bright or more out there than usual on public transport. Um, wearing something that you know that you're shy to wear, offering to give a small speech at a friend's birthday, planning an event where you're going to be the centre of attention, like a birthday party,
46:31 Jemma Sbeg? going up to a group at a party who you don't know and introducing yourself, doing a huge presentation at work. What we want to do is start small. Start with those really small things, like posting something on a private Instagram. Even if it's like for twenty four hours, post a story, post a story to your close friends, just something really, really small. Wear that outfit, wear like the thing that you would never wear. And once you can get through that situation without feeling truly ghastly or anxious, you move on to the next.
47:08 Jemma Sbeg? We want to build up your tolerance, basically, to being seen, maybe being heard, being watched, perhaps even being judged, by showing you that A, rarely is the worst case scenario going to be the one that happens. B, even if it is, repeat after me, you will be okay, you will be okay. And finally, it starts to show you the possibility of a life without the fear of being perceived, being the only thing that is motivating you. Finally, and in one bonus shift that has helped me immensely in the past few years, that I don't really have a name for, but let's call it the ideal self shift,
47:52 Jemma Sbeg? is really focused on tuning into what do you actually want. I think one of the consequences of a fear of being perceived that we haven't spoken about is that we are always thinking about how to be less offensive to others, what they might expect from us, how to make us likeable based on their tastes, their views, their ideals. It's, you know, hugely aligned with people pleasing, but it also disconnects us from what we need ourselves and who we wanna be, because it's all about making others happy. Deprioritize the thoughts of others just for five minutes. What do you think about yourself? What do you think about yourself and is that good enough for you,
48:34 Jemma Sbeg? such that in five years' time, you would be okay with still being this version of you? I really want you to sit with that for a second. If no one else was around, who would you be? Would you like this version of you? How would you dress? How would you go about your daily life? What is your potential? And what's stopping you from being those things right now? Now, I want you to think about what things you'd like to change, and I want you to kind of decide which of those things that you are hell bent on changing or you think would make you happy,
49:14 Jemma Sbeg? are based on what you think other people expect from you and what you need to change for their approval. And then I also want you to acknowledge what you wanna change because you want to. What do you wanna change for your life, the life that is yours?
49:32 Jemma Sbeg? And when you look at those two columns of things that you feel you need to change or you need to be, and you see the things that you feel you need to be for others, and you see the things that you feel the need to be and you wanna be for yourself, anytime you find yourself focusing too much on that left hand column, I want you to shift back to the right. Concentrate all of your energy on that second column. What I want for me, the life I want for me, the person I can become without this fear, and keep it as a reminder for when you're worrying or obsessing over what someone does or doesn't think about you. Because you are
50:13 Jemma Sbeg? the centre of all your experiences, of your whole universe, you are the one that matters here, and I want you to be fiercely devoted to being your truest self, even if it feels selfish or like you're disappointing others. This is a muscle, healing from our fear of being perceived, is a muscle, it's a skill, and it's one of the greatest skills we can learn because it will transform your life. Please hear me when I say this, it's hard, it feels unnatural when you have been in this feared fearful state for so long, but this just the sense of freedom that you're one day going to have makes it so worth it. I really don't think that you need to be this fearful for the rest of your life, even if
50:58 Jemma Sbeg? you feel like right now this fear is protecting you or that it's useful or it's helpful. I think you kind of know that it's no longer the case because you're here and you're listening to this episode and you want to change your life. And I think that that is something that once you are committed to, once you deprioritise the opinions of others, once you find the mental shift, the mental game that works for you, it all becomes possible. So, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I do really hope that you enjoyed it. I hope that you learnt something. I hope that you can take something away. I hope that you can get rid of your fear of being perceived, you can toss it out, that you can just look at other people as just other people, doing their own thing, the same way that you're
51:43 Jemma Sbeg? doing your own thing, and really do the do the things, do the adventures, do the experiences.
51:51 Jemma Sbeg? That scare you and that have always scared you because of what others might think. And hopefully now you don't care. So if there is someone that you know who you think might need to hear this episode, please feel free to share it with them, share it online, share it on Instagram. You can also DM me if you have additional thoughts, feelings, I don't know, hypotheticals. You can DM me at that psychology podcast. We're also taking episode suggestions at the moment. And make sure that you are following along on Spotify or Apple and give us a five star review. If you enjoyed this episode, until next time, stay gentle, be kind to yourself and we will be talking very, very soon.
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53:13 Jemma Sbeg? I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my whoop. Truly, you guys, you know, I'm such a data and information driven person and I love opening my whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit. And I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And whoop also gives me these actionable,
53:54 Jemma Sbeg? personalized insights that have made me more intentional and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try whoop with a thirty day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join dot whoop dot com slash psychology for your free month of whoop.
54:17 Jemma Sbeg? This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is, lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favorite gym clothing at gymshark.com.
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