The world revolves around me.

[Helyna]

"Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people."
-André Dubus, Broken Vessels, 1991

It's true. It's so true. Selfishness is the root of all my problems. Really!

Everyone is not watching me at every opportunity.
Everyone is not watching my parents (or friends, brother, or anyone else who can embarrass me).
Everyone is not listening to me.
Everyone is not listening to my parents.
I am not the most important part of most people's day.
I am not going to forever live in the memories of everyone I run across.
Most people I know do not think about me every day.
I am not the only one who asks a given person for help or who is difficult to help.
Everyone does not expect me to be perfect.
The world is not going to explode if I make a mistake.
Everyone does not have to like me.
It is impossible for everyone to like me.
THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND ME.
Etc, etc, etc.

 

[Chod77]

Yea I guess I'm pretty selfish. I try really hard not to be. My dad called me a narcissist the other day. I was kinda shocked because I'm not vain, but I know that he meant I was selfish.

 

[playthepsychedelic]

I'm sorry, I don't get the link with SA

 

[playthepsychedelic]

I'm sorry, I don't get the link with SA

 

[DannieCleo]

the link with SA is that the very essence of SA is being overly concerned with what people think of us when in reality, as the thread starter stated, most people don't care enough about us to think about us as nuch as we think they do.

But when your SA/AvPD is deeply ingrained its difficult to take account of that fact, esp. during stress provoking times.

for me and i'm sure lots of others its a lil different. I work in a gossipy atmosphere whereby the most innocuous of actions is disected and twisted to somehow make it a negative thing and gossipped and speculated about until the next innocuous little thing.

so its hard for me (and i'm sure others who work in similar envorinments) to really hold with the mantra that no one cares about every little thing i do.

 

[floridateen18]

Your affirmations are true, yes, however, your sub-conscious mind does not register the word "not".

So when a person says anything like " I am not the center of attention" to themselves, their sub-conscious mind hears " I am the center of attention"

Your sub-concious mind doesnt respond to not, or negative things, ie.
"I do not want to be shy" will turn into " I want to be shy"

So what is the solution to fix this?

The key is the choice of wording. If I take the same statement i used above and change it to a positive affirmation, this is the result.

" I want to be more social"

Your sub-conscious mind will work with you instead of against you if you re-word your affirmations, and trust me, you want your sub-conscious mind on your side, for it holds the key to everyones deepests, darkest secrets that reside in them, even if they are not aware of it.

Does this sound too farfectched?

It may seem odd, but there are many books written about what I am explaining, and you could even google "sub-concious mind" and "self- programming" together and confirm what I say is true.

I hope that this helps your affirmations give a more positive note, and I feel that if you change their word structure around and tweek it, you will have AMAZING results.

 

[Helyna]

floridateen18: Really?! Where did you learn this? Why does it work that way? I find this really exciting for some reason. I'm going to try it for a while and see if I can get my thoughts to change. Thanks!

 

[Slothrop]

Indeed. I realized this some years ago and have been better off since then. It can be a tough realization to put into practice, but it definitely helps.

I prefer the term "self-absorbed" over "selfish" or "narcissistic", as the latter two have misleading connotations. We become absorbed in our own thoughts, which serve to insulate us from reality.

Consider all the times where you "know" that people are thinking negatively about you; the times where you feel like someone looks down on you even though they haven't come right out and said it.

Now think about the arrogance and presumption involved in thinking you know what someone else is thinking. Think about how it's wrong for you to project your own feelings about yourself onto them. That's what's really happening. You obviously can't read their mind, and yet you feel so certain about what they're thinking—why is that?

We imagine that other people can see our thoughts, our feelings, our awful secrets, our past mistakes, our failures; likewise, we imagine that we can see that in other people—we think we know their thoughts, and since we don't see awfulness like our own in them, we assume they don't have it, and that they're better people. "Normal" people.

The truth is that we really can't see into people, and they can't see into us, and that we all have inner problems of one kind or another. And it isn't limited to social anxiety: everybody is bound by the limitation. All we have to go by is communication, the rest is self-indulgent guesswork that ought to be avoided as much as possible.

 

[Psychedelicious]

People are selfish, they just are. People with social phobia are in a way obsessed with themselves and all their actions, and it's mostly what we think about. We however don't they we are the greatest things on this earth, usually quite the opposite. I just don't understand how it can be narcissism. Sure I'm pretty obsessed with myself and everything that's wrong, but I am sure as hell not in love with myself.

 

[Jellybeans]

Your affirmations are true, yes, however, your sub-conscious mind does not register the word "not".

So when a person says anything like " I am not the center of attention" to themselves, their sub-conscious mind hears " I am the center of attention"

Your sub-concious mind doesnt respond to not, or negative things, ie.
"I do not want to be shy" will turn into " I want to be shy"

So what is the solution to fix this?

The key is the choice of wording. If I take the same statement i used above and change it to a positive affirmation, this is the result.

" I want to be more social"

Your sub-conscious mind will work with you instead of against you if you re-word your affirmations, and trust me, you want your sub-conscious mind on your side, for it holds the key to everyones deepests, darkest secrets that reside in them, even if they are not aware of it.

Does this sound too farfectched?

It may seem odd, but there are many books written about what I am explaining, and you could even google "sub-concious mind" and "self- programming" together and confirm what I say is true.

I hope that this helps your affirmations give a more positive note, and I feel that if you change their word structure around and tweek it, you will have AMAZING results.

i think you're trying to say something more about what you FOCUS on, right? your mind doesn't compute everything in words, it's more of what your focus and attention is divided unto. therefore, if you choose something more interesting/exciting/important to think about, you won't even notice your SA as much... hence, not focusing so much on your SA. and no matter if it's positive or negative, any type of thinking ABOUT your SA will trigger your SA.

...or so says the secret.