Confidence is simply a gage of our own opinion on ourselves!

Now I am focused on gaining a higher opinion of myself and my abilities to succeed in situations, I can now see why it is so important to concentrate on positives on yourself, not allowing to think bad of yourself. Because quite simply that is what confidence is - a gage of the value you place on yourself. You see people who have a really high opinion of themselves, they are super confident, infact they are usually arrogant. Whereas those with no confidence have like no value on themselves, they believe they are not good enough, usually don't like a lot about themselves.

For sure confidence takes many different factors. I mean I have confidence in my intelligence and personality, but I have very little confidence in my appearance and my ability to perform in certain social situations and around certain people, i.e. around women, authority, speaking in groups, approaching people, etc. But that shows that my confidence is a gage of my beliefs on myself for these parts of myself - because I am insecure about my appearance after years of put downs and ridicule, I just cannot believe I am good enough. Same with those situations - I have no confidence because I rate my ability to perform and succeed in these situations as zero. These areas where I lack confidence are the key to overcoming SA, we simply have to start believing we are good enough to do these things.

I also realise that one should never feel inferior to someone for your confidence levels. Confidence is only a gage of how you value yourself and your abilities. Nothing more. I believe that it is near impossible to increase your confidence levels without increasing the value you have on yourself and your abilities. Some may say that practice increases confidence which is a seperate issue from believing you are good enough, but practice actually increases confidence because practice makes perfect and you are increasing the value you place on your ability to succeed in a situation you are practicing, you have evidence to back up this increasing value.

When you think of things you are confident at doing, I always give the example of driving as its a non social related situation and I know a lot of people believe they are good drivers here. But if you have a lot of confidence in your driving skills you are placing a high value on your abilities to perform, cope and succeed. You feel no anxiety because the value you place on your ability exceeds the value you believe you need to perform and succeed. But public speaking - you know (if you find it so difficult) that you place next to no value on your ability to cope, perform and succeed and this value is extremely lower than the value you believe you need in order to cope, succeed and perform. This is what causes the fear - you don't feel you can do it, you are focused on the fact you believe you will fail, you are worried about it, you have no confidence in it, you start worrying about the consequences, you are anxious and self aware, self conscious, and then you get worried about speaking when anxious and that people will see how anxious you are, the vicious cycle of anxiety is triggered and spirals out of control.

I am a firm believer that confidence in ourselves is the answer to overcoming SA. If you want to beat SA, start concentrating on changing your mindset to a very very positive one, start praising yourself for all those parts you lack confidence in, start understanding that they are good enough, that you are good enough, that you can do the things you are afraid of, start gathering positive evidence to prove you can. Start gaining a high opinion of yourself, believe you are worth it, you are just as good as anyone else, have that confidence in yourself that you are a fantastic person and you are so cool and anyone would be so lucky to know you. Confidence is so desirable because it shows you are self assured, you value yourself and believe you are good enough. Confidence is the key to everything in life and you can get it by setting out on the right path and working at raising the opinion you have on yourself from now on. For sure you need a plan and need to do work on it, but its actually quite simple and easy. And finally just remember - confidence is a power and I see men and women look up to and respect those with confidence and find those with more confidence than themselves as desirable. Would a really confident lady look at an unconfident man? No way. Would an unconfident lady be flattered by interest from a confident nice man? Definitely. You don't have to be perfect looking or perfect personality, we all have flaws. Confidence can get you anything and it comes from the value you place on yourself and your abilities. Simple as that!

Of course, all that is your opinion.

I agree that confidence is a big part of it. I would not however claim that gaining confidence is the key to overcoming social anxiety.

Social anxiety is based on destructive thoughts. These thoughts do not necessarily have to do with ones own value. Confident people can be anxious and people with no confidence can be carefree, I haven't seen any real connection there. People with social anxiety often feel a real threat in social situations, a threat that others might experience when faced with a real dangerous situation, such as being confronted by a violent person or what not. This is because social phobics have, somehow, convinced themselves that these situations are dangerous.
I know plenty of people who have no self-esteem what so ever but they are very social, amongst the most social people actually, always talking to everyone with no real limitations.

One might say "if you asked people who have social phobia, you'll find that most of them lack any confidence/self-esteem". While this is true, one will also find that most people generally, social phobics or not, lack confidence in some sense, so to say that people with social phobia have less self-esteem than non social phobics, would not be correct without any real data to back it up.

Overcoming social phobia is based on challenging ones thoughts. Like are these thoughts I'm having realistic? And what's so bad about it if they are true? Etc.

This is just my opinion though.

Darkly - its Burning Heart from SAS forum, that is the typical old comment from you, nothing of worth saying, nothing constructive, but just some little silly comment to make out you don't agree but giving no evidence to say why.

Signs -I thought like you did up until a week ago, but I don't whatsoever now. Yeah I totally agree that there are people with low self esteem but who are sociable, but they may have confidence in their abilities to cope and perform in these situations because of past experience. If they have always succeeded in being chatty and sociable then you will always have that confidence to keep being like that. Its a habbit, practice makes perfect. There are definitely 2 factors in this self esteem - on yourself and your abilities. I mean in some situations which I am so familiar with or people I am so familiar with I am really confident and sociable, but in other situations I don't have that experience and confidence to prove to myself I can handle the situation I am very anxious. These people lacking self esteem must have belief and confidence in their abilities to cope in these situations to have the confidence they have to perform.

I really do believe the danger we feel is simply as a result of the huge lack of belief we have in ourselves to cope, perform and succeed, that we are simply not good enough to handle the situation to the standard we wish for. We don't get anxious in situations we are confident in and know we will succeed in. We don't feel these are dangerous. Yet those we have no confidence in our ability to cope and succeed we are panic stricken with worry. Its not because the situation is dangerous, its because we have no belief we can do it to the required level.

I half agree that SA is challenging thoughts if you have an irrational fear - but most fears are not irrational given our thoughts on ourselves. I fear women which may seem irrational. But its very rational given that I have such a low opinion of myself in terms of looks and my ability to perform and make a good impression around women due to my lack of confidence with women. Its no wonder I get self conscious and feel inadequate and inferior and lack confidence around women when I feel I am simply not good enough. But if I started to really rate myself and believe I am good enough, I have so much to offer, I will make a good impression around women, I can be seen as desirable by some women as its all a matter of taste, then I am going to have more confidence and less insecure, less self conscious, not focusing on my perceived flaws, etc, and confidence will boost and anxiety will fade.
So this irrational fear of women - if I work on the beliefs that the fear is irrational and work on desensitising women so that they do not seem fearful, well that may sound good, but at the end of the day I will still have no confidence around women, no positive experiences to prove this is ok and fine, no confidence in my ability to know I will cope and perform and come across well, etc.
I mean its like a fairground rollercoaster. You know you are safe and not really in danger but you still are scared and anxious. The only way that anxiety goes is to experience it several times to see that you can do it and that you have confidence that you can do it.

If you aim to beat SA by targeting every irrational thought and fear it will take forever. And until you have belief and confidence in yourself to succeed these fears and irrational beliefs will remain. They are only irrational because of the beliefs we have on ourselves.

If you don't agree I can understand because we all suffer differently and have SA for different reasons, but I would like to chat more with you. I find it fascinating.

Well hold the phone there for a second. When Darkly said it's your opinion, he's right. Same with signs. The problem here is that there is no one-size-fits-all definition of social anxiety/social phobia. If there's one thing we all have in common here, it's probably that we're uncomfortable or experience distress of some kind in certain or even most social situations. Beyond that, the commonalities more or less end. It's very dangerous to generalize from small samples, such as one (i.e., yourself) in any exercise of reasoning or argument. Sure, people may relate, and I'm sure there are those of us with SA that have low levels of confidence, perhaps even only under certain circumstances. But we're all unique, and our experience of SA will be as well.

For me, my experience is mostly somatic or physiological - it's just very primitive responses, like starting to sweat or breathe heavily when I'm in certain social contexts. It's probably just a case of classical conditioning, to be frank... nothing more.

I mean, yea, global explanations can be fun. Look at Freudianism: sex is the reason for everything. Kinda like astrology: everything is written in the stars. These schools of thought explain way too much to be useful. I think it would be more fruitful to look to individual explanations, to try to understand each other one on one.

Frizboy - darkly and I have had many disagreements on the other site, he loved to put down my views and say I was wrong without saying why, he likes to provoke postive people by dismissing their thoughts without explanation.

Frizboy - I cannot repeat enough that I can accept people will think differently, I don't know how you or others suffer, but I like to discuss my beliefs, I respect everyone's thoughts on the subject. Its no skin off my teeth if people think differently, I am on a mission to overcome my own SA, which is why I can only speak about my own beliefs and opinions. I wish everyone luck in their mission too. Take my comments whatever way you like, its my opinion on my own situation, so if darkly thinks its my opinion well he is right, but talk about stating the obvious.

Yep. It's just statements like "I am a firm believer that confidence in ourselves is the answer to overcoming SA," that make me think you might need reminding. Sorry if it seems like I'm lashing out, I just can't stand pop psychology, motivational-speaker-sounding stuff in general. Things that make you go "bleh" you know, hehe.

Anyway, the research... and I mean the actual, published, scientific research... on the subject of self-esteem is kinda disheartening anyway. Just as one brief example off the top of my head, high self-esteem is linked to risky decision making... such as the decision to use hard drugs and to drive drunk. So while self-confidence may alleviate social anxiety in some individuals, you have to realize there is a trade-off going on there.

Also, as a psychology student, I have access to some pretty neat resources. This is what I found in my database about self-esteem in people with SA: "[...] rather than by low self-esteem per se, socially anxious people are characterized by a small discrepancy between esteem of self and others, and it may be this reduced tendency to self-favouring that is pivotal to social anxiety." I honestly don't know what that means exactly... lol... I think it might mean SA isn't about the way we actually feel about ourselves but about the way we think other people think about us, which makes sense. But here's some info if you want to look up the article:

Author(s): de Jong, Peter J.
Title: Implicit self-esteem and social anxiety: differential self-favouring effects in high and low anxious individuals.
Source: Behaviour Research and Therapy Vol 40(5) (May 2002): 501-508

Frizboy, wow what can I say to that? You believe My "pop psychology" is totally wrong is entirely your opinion which I respect. I don't know how you suffer, it must be very differently from me. I don't expect you to value what I write, I am writing purely on my own situation. What you say I believe is totally inaccurate and wrong for me, but then again I believe CBT is totally wrong.

We will have to agree to disagree.

Interesting stuff though.

I wouldn't (and didn't) say "totally wrong." More like "right for some, wrong for some." Just trying to look at the bigger picture is all. Cheers then.

You see Frizboy I think its wrongly believed its what others think of us that we fear. I used to be skinny at school and was so self conscious about being called skinny, bean pole, twiggy, etc. I was so self conscious about my weight and being called such names and I was so self conscious about my weight.

These days 10 years on I am a good weight, I like my body. These days if people still call me skinny (as I am tall) I can laugh about it because it doesn't hurt because my own opinion of myself is good. I feel happy with it so what people think doesn't hurt me.

I know negative judgement on me is just one person's opinion it doesn't really bother me, I know they will soon think of something else.

I have to go now but I will expand later. But I just do not agree with your theory, I used to think like that ages ago, but not now.

There’s nothing wrong with being emphatic about something, especially about believing in finding a way to fix your own problems and perhaps help others in the process. I like charliehungerford’s posts and I find them very intelligent, helpful and respectful of others opinions.

Speaking of which- here’s my thoughts on confidence. I think confidence is very closely related to SA, but it probably doesn’t quite pinpoint it. I think its even more simple than confidence – its about the acceptance or allowance of traits you don’t like. When you are anxious, it means you are in some process of correction (usually self-correction). There is something that you don’t like about yourself or the situation and your body is put on alert in order to correct or change or hide that which you don’t like about yourself (or possibly the situation). The hardest part of SA is that the problem may be SA itself. You may actually hate that you are shy or scared and then your brain tries to correct that with more anxiety which only makes you more shy or scared. The goal would be then to not be ashamed of yourself, to make allowances for imperfection, to love yourself more (which you talk about) and actually accept SA itself and not freak out about being shy or scared either. Eventually you will feel less shy and scared, but only if you stop worrying so much about it.

Gaining confidence, in my opinion, also would help tremendously and is very closely related. The word ‘confidence’ though seems to be more transient, where you could build yourself up to believe in yourself only to have it crushed the next day when something really bad happens. Maybe the underlying principals that guide confidence needs to be grounded. Such as no longer feeling shame about yourself. Accepting the imperfections of yourself as just a part of who you are and not something to try to change or hide from. Even accepting SA itself and realizing that it too is not something to hate and cower from, and allow that you just have tendencies to be shy and scared.

Thanks for the nice comments Phoenix. I have to say it is really good to have debate about the solutions to overcome SA, in the last forum I was writing it was just all feeling sorry for themselves. It doesn't matter if people disagree with one another, that is good, if we all said yes and had no debate we probably wouldn't progress far.

I do agree along very similar lines to you Phoenix, I think that is a fantastic post but I know people will disagree, but it is what is right for you individually that counts, so if someone disagrees one must not take it to heart. People really have arrived where they are now from very different paths. So I respect frizboy and others who disagree.

It seems like there is a split where people believe SA derives from. i.e. a lot of people believe its because we fear negative judgement, its because of irrational beliefs and feared situations which is why we suffer the anxiety. And therefore its these things that need targeting in order to overcome SA.

I know its the opposite - that I suffer anxiety and fear situations because of the negative beliefs on myself and my abilities to succeed.

Basically my point of view is known now and its a waste of time discussing it any more, people can only believe what is right for them. I just wanted to say that if anyone like you Phoenix or others who believe similar theory to me want to help each other work on this and discuss such things then pm me or let me know, I am mega determined to sort this out and want to waste no time in doing so.

Charlie, if you want to slander me again, that's fine. I've tried to explain things to you in the past, but you didn't care to hear it, so I'm not going to bother. I'm sorry, I usually don't care to write out long posts.

signs05 said:

The problem here is that there is no one-size-fits-all definition of social anxiety/social phobia. If there's one thing we all have in common here, it's probably that we're uncomfortable or experience distress of some kind in certain or even most social situations. Beyond that, the commonalities more or less end. It's very dangerous to generalize from small samples, such as one (i.e., yourself) in any exercise of reasoning or argument. Sure, people may relate, and I'm sure there are those of us with SA that have low levels of confidence, perhaps even only under certain circumstances. But we're all unique, and our experience of SA will be as well.

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Very true.

phoenix1 said:

The hardest part of SA is that the problem may be SA itself. You may actually hate that you are shy or scared and then your brain tries to correct that with more anxiety which only makes you more shy or scared. The goal would be then to not be ashamed of yourself, to make allowances for imperfection, to love yourself more (which you talk about) and actually accept SA itself and not freak out about being shy or scared either. Eventually you will feel less shy and scared, but only if you stop worrying so much about it.

Click to expand...

I agree. Accepting the SA could be very helpful, yet is very difficult for some of us to achieve.

I just wanted to say that I got a pm from signs last night and I can see he is right in that SA has to be treated in different ways due to different origins. The way I describe I believe is only right for those who have had real problems with self esteem. I think SA can be brought about by two reasons - having irrational negative beliefs which really are irrational and wrong which need correcting, and those who have irrational beliefs which have developed from negative self image. i.e. feeling inferior and inadequate to everyone which drains confidence and makes one avoid situations.

So I do apologise if I was a bit strong in saying I am certain my beliefs are right, that should have definitely read for how I suffer!

I feel to be honest the answer is that you have to target the reasons you have SA. i.e. I was once really confident, ok I was only about 12 years old but I was the most confident kid in school probably, I was told by the teacher I was the loudest chatterbox, I would always be first up reading out stories I wrote. High school bullying and constant put downs and ridicule is what just ruined my self image and confidence. But if people never suffered the daily ridicule and name calling for 5 years plus, but feared people from the day they have been born for example, then yes the way to overcome it is definitely very different. You learn something new every day!

Pheonix,

I think what you wrote about social anxiety is really good. It is similar to what a few people think about it. -The whole idea of, that you won't get rid of anxiety until you accept having it, and accept all aspects of your self regardless of how they appear. ...I think all of that is great, and I also think that it's not an easy thing to accomplish and is a process of losing shame and losing self-conciousness etc...

As for confidence etc.. I think that social anxiety is just an exagerration of every person's insecurities and questions about themselves.
This is why we feel more ashamed -since because we are similar enough to others, others will look down on us.
...If we were really different (and people were aware of this) our problem would not be felt as so big nor with as much shame.
- ironically, a 'big difference' is because of a small one.

And for this reason, I am finding that I need to believe in my own opinion (even an opinion about my self) -or, just believe without question- since I already let others' thoughts effect me too much.

Similar to this, I think that the irony is that we will get better and develop strength and stamina to not be as reactive and vulnerable to others, when we realise that the reason people are sometimes negative towards us is because they carry the same inner fears that we do.

...And that we needn't feel shame because we began more vulnerable, with a bigger problem than them.
...Like the idea of forgiving others their sins -if we are able to not be particularly effected by criticism of worried about judgement, this will be because we realise that we are not so different or separate from others.

And we have every reason to forgive ourselves in order to then forgive others: because when we look properly at everything, we see how close we in fact are with others.

...shame is a big factor in social anxiety.
(I also have some ideas about psych labels that go with this topic of self-confidence etc)

Oh, and, last but not least, I think that overcoming SA is a process -that what we are going through is merely the exaggeration of what all people fo through as they develop and come to lose their fear of what others think of them. ...this is what many older people say about themselves; of how self-concious they were when they were younger. -We just have a bit more of this ego-sensitivity, or sensitivity, to deal with.

One more thing: something that I think is helping me lose my shame and self-conciousness, is actually to face it all.

...Going to therapy, dealing with all the stigma of the label 'mental illness', aving councelor's interpret what I mean or the way that I am in a negative way themselves, worrying my self silly about having a 'mental illness' and how I worried about how bad it was or what it could be close to, etc etc ...I'm believing in my own way of looking at my self again.

i don't know just how it all works, but I think I've gone past denial and trying to deal with fear (anxiety) by blocking it and fighting it, to facing that it is a real problem and all these fears of having a real problem are making me put it into some perspective again.

...and maybe it was too big a problem for me to manage without facing all my worst doubts.

And charlie: when I was a teenager I was actually told by someone: "You never get phased by anyone or anything"
....yes, I think I was like that because I intuitively knew that without this hard outer shell, I was a heap of delicate nerves. ...but I want that same stubborn belief in my self and my own views of my self -my own self-image- I think that I have been questioning this and being effected and too open towards others' images of me.

frizboy said:

"I honestly don't know what that means exactly... lol... I think it might mean SA isn't about the way we actually feel about ourselves but about the way we think other people think about us, which makes sense.

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I know you won't thank me for this post frizboy, but I was thinking about what you said here today and I think I can prove you are wrong, even with my pop psychology.

You say that SA isn't about the way we feel about ourselves but the way others think about us. But how come we only worry about people thinking the negative things we think of ourselves? i.e. how come someone who believes they are ugly and feel negative about some feature of themselves or someone who is insecure about their personality only worry about what people think of these things they are insecure about? How come I am never worried what people think of my ears, my eyes, my teeth, how I dress, my personality, my intelligence, etc - i.e. things I don't feel negative about on myself?

If we don't think negatively of some part of ourselves we don't worry what others think of us. And therefore that is why I believe this pop psychology that its our own negative beliefs on ourselves that causes the problems. If
I had no insecurities or thought negatively on myself then I wouldn't worry what anyone thinks.

But anyway, I am willing to agree to disagree, I know you won't agree with me so we will leave it there. I do agree we all suffer differently and have different reasons for SA and therefore everyone has to do different things in order to overcome their SA.

charlieHungerford said:

frizboy said:

"I honestly don't know what that means exactly... lol... I think it might mean SA isn't about the way we actually feel about ourselves but about the way we think other people think about us, which makes sense.

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I know you won't thank me for this post frizboy, but I was thinking about what you said here today and I think I can prove you are wrong, even with my pop psychology.

You say that SA isn't about the way we feel about ourselves but the way others think about us. But how come we only worry about people thinking the negative things we think of ourselves? i.e. how come someone who believes they are ugly and feel negative about some feature of themselves or someone who is insecure about their personality only worry about what people think of these things they are insecure about? How come I am never worried what people think of my ears, my eyes, my teeth, how I dress, my personality, my intelligence, etc - i.e. things I don't feel negative about on myself?

If we don't think negatively of some part of ourselves we don't worry what others think of us. And therefore that is why I believe this pop psychology that its our own negative beliefs on ourselves that causes the problems. If
I had no insecurities or thought negatively on myself then I wouldn't worry what anyone thinks.

But anyway, I am willing to agree to disagree, I know you won't agree with me so we will leave it there. I do agree we all suffer differently and have different reasons for SA and therefore everyone has to do different things in order to overcome their SA.

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Ok, I have several difficulties with what you just said. First of all, you're not proving anyone wrong. You're arguing a point. Second of all, you're not arguing against me. You're arguing against Peter J. de Jong, PhD. Third, you're apparently confirming his findings. It's not about low self-esteem; people with SA who don't realize they're taking a self-esteem test rate their self-esteem pretty high. It's only when we think we're "under the knife" as it were, actually being evaluated, that our self-esteem plummets. Fourth, I don't even agree with that; remember I said earlier that I think trying to understand each individual and their unique situation is probably the best way of understanding SA. I just tried to find an actual scientific finding about SA and self-esteem. Which, btw, is not proof; it's statistical probability. Fifth, and finally, I already know your position; no need to defend it any further. I just wasn't sure you understood mine.

Alright? That's all I have to say on the matter.

I know its pointless continuing this debate but you say its only when we are under the knife (being evaluated) as it were is when our self esteem plummets.
But what I said was that we place a value on ourselves and those we are around and its when your value is significantly lower on yourself than those around you that you feel inadequate, inferior, not good enough, you become self conscious and anxious. You are not anxious when you are by yourself as there is no one else to place a value on. So this under the knife theory does not stand up.

Its not just 'SA sufferers' who think like that. We all do this, you see people who are attracted to someone act all anxious and nervous around them, and that is because they place such a high value on that person. Yet people with very high opinions of themselves are arrogant and feel they are better than everyone as the value they place on others is below themselves.

But anyway, lets leave it there.

Charlie and Frizboy-

To me, the two of you appear to be saying the same thing but are approaching it from different sides.

If you think of real confidence and strong sense of self-definition... this is always only about a combination of who you think you are on your own plus who others think you are. ....this is the true 'self', and the rest are illusions.

And this is the same as discussing 'self esteem'

A person can only know who they really are and thus have real confidence (which is based on a clarity about where one fits in) in relationship with others; as in you can know your self as shy only in relationship with a person who is not shy relative to you.

...anyhow, this is the basic philosophy in spirituality. Where God, who's name is "I am" is only realised when a person sees that 'I am' is actually made up of 'I am and I am not'. -that you can know who you are and thus be truly 'confident' (with true self-esteem) when you have come to know within your self that there also exists 'the other'. ...this is because when the two are seen to exist equally together within the person, this inward understanding mirrors the outer reality and a person is able to have balance and a good sense of who they are. -because a person only knows who they are in relation to who they are not.

....anyhow, I'm not particularly great at understanding or describing such concepts. But, I think that this may be why the two of you find yourselves in disagreement -that this is largely based on a difference in definition.

Frizboy, I think that words like 'self esteem', 'emotional intelligence', 'pessimism' and 'optimism' ....all of these terms can be confusing because people view things from different angles.
Umm.... to try to explain what I am not personally great at being clear on... I can use an example of how words carry a different meaning for different people (it is because we only get a sense of meaning from comparing two unlike things, and until then our sense of what a word means will be different)
....
eg: my councelor told me that a new theory by some psychologist was that some children are born pessimists, and some optimists. ...I completely disagreed with this theory, because I saw it as that this psychologist was saying that some children are basically born with negative attitudes. ...It got a little hot because my councelor completely agreed with this psychologist and I was passionately in disagreement with the theory. I explained my reasoning, saying that it is impossible to be born a 'pessimist' since the only nature possible for a person is that they want what is positive, just as wanting it self is positive.
She said she understood my reasoning, but gave some other reason for why she thinks the theory is right; saying that she does not attach a negative meaning to the term 'pessimist', which meant that she did not see it or understand it the same as me -not seeing this 'negative' term as being fundamentally negative -it is just a characteristic, neither positive nor negative.

...Who is right and who is wrong? It depends on what angle a person looks at things.

I thought that this would be the case, and came up with a timely explanation for resolving our difference in opinion (and cooled the situation!) with this easy to remember "formula" ...that gets me out of trouble from time to time when I can see how to use it.

God is both the Alpha and the Omega (the 'is' is both 'is and is not'; or "I am" which is God's name is both "I am and I am not"; or 'good' is 'good and bad') ....yet because God has the highest status, God is therefore Alpha. But God can only be Alpha ("I am" and have status) when God realises that there is no status, as in Alpha and Omega (the top and bottom) are equal.
This is the same as something 'positive' being also neither 'positive nor negative' ...it only depends on which side a person is coming from.


....Anyhow, sorry if the above comes across as babble.
This will most likely be because I have the most basic handle on such psychological and spiritual concepts (which is the same as 'duality' and the mind-body question and debates on good and evil etc).
But the basic thing that I am trying to talk about is "perception".

I also think that it is impossible for anyone to be truly sure of who they are, and likewise feel 'one' with others, without also having a sense of being separate from others. ...and I think that this 'self-actualising',self definition - or Jung's 'individuation' - is what we are all doing.
In fact, 'social anxiety' I feel is basically a neurotic problem about identity that all people have the desire (and need) to answer.
We are simply more sensitive about such a question for whatever reason (in my case it is just plain sensitivity it self, I think)

Jung did say: "Neurosis (the state of self-division, and a degree of mental illness even) opens the door to individuation"
Just as Jesus said: "I thank you God, because you show to the ignorant what you keep hidden from the wise and the learned"
...among many other things that he said about 'the lost' and the 'outcasts' being more likely to find their way first.