External Focus

[SickJoke]

Social anxiety cuts off external reality. It puts us in the state of "inside our head": our body is present, but it's like an empty shell. Our mind is somewhere waaaay deep inside our head. Our senses get dull - it's hard to see because everything is out of focus. It's hard to hear because everything seems quiet, except our internal brain chatter.

Sometimes I still catch myself being "inside my head." I might hear someone speak to me, but it's too quiet to understand. After lots of practice, I'm now at the point where I can immediately recognize "Hey, I'm inside my head," and BAM I snap out of it and I'm back into reality.

It takes practice, focusing on the external world. Opening our eyes and ears and really paying attention. It's hard work when we're so used to being inside our heads, but it gets easier.

 

[NothingElseMatters]

it also helps when focusing completely on the senses e.g the sounds around.that takes you off your head(for about a minute and then the mind does its staff again)

 

[Flowers-Of-Bloom]

Focusing on external reality is unfamiliar and cold.
People who live in external reality are so naïve. Do I really want to?

 

[LeoC]

I agree with you, recently i'm having the same feeling of getting abruptly out myself and into reality... I also feel it get's easier with practice...
Reality is not necessarily cold, it's just real (i don't mean it can't be really cold). How can it be cold to be the able to share thoughts, ideas, ways of seeing life ? I'm not saying you have to share them, you can disagree, even hate them. But it is necessary to enrich your inner world from the outside or else it will be nothing but a bleak desert. Besides, you can have either perspective, according to the situation, he is only speaking about being able to change between them.

 

[Scrabbl]

Focusing on external reality is unfamiliar and cold.
People who live in external reality are so naïve. Do I really want to?

yes it's focusing on the external world, especially other people, is very important.

Have you heard of the Harry Harlow experiment? It's animal cruelty but it also proves that we need socialization to survive. Even monkeys will self-harm when they don't have access to the external reality

Harry Harlow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Anubis]

I tend to agree with everything you said except I think we underestimate our ability to focus on the external. Our unconscious is amazingly brilliant at defining the external moods of the people around us. It's just that social phobes seem to define every mood as a possible threat. (Ex. That guy is happy and sociable. Better stay away from him because his social clout gives him the power to possibly expose me to humiliation. That guy looks tough. Better stay away from him because there's nothing stopping him from hitting me.)

All of these observations or "chatter" (as you name them) are not wrong per se. They can all happen. But the social phobe excentuates the negativity and lets it paralyze them.

That's just my opinion though.