For most of my life, I suffered throughout with extreme social anxiety. One of the ways that would manifest would be an avoiding eye contact. Eye contact with people used to freak me out.
I wanted to break this cycle. However, I knew it was not going to be easy. That is when I remembered something I read in Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. There were these two scientists who discovered, by studying facial expressions, that there was a link between your facial expression and how you feel.
Meaning that if you smile, you will feel good. That gave me an idea. To help me be more social, I would smile at strangers while walking down the street. If they smiled back, we both win. If they didn’t smile back, I still won, because I was feeling good because I was smiling. Plus, it is not like I could or would even want to force someone to smile.
The smile game was a smashing success. I got to learn how to make eye contact with people and got to feel good while doing it. Smiling was very hard for me at first. I generally would space out or look down. Now I hold my head up high and smile while having a great time.
If you want to spread more joy in this world, I suggest trying out the smile game. Later I learned about mirror neurons, which are neurons that mirror other people who you have a brief connection. Basically, to understand what you feel, their brain fires similar neurons that create that feeling so you can understand their feeling. Meaning, there is a chance that even though they didn’t smile back, you did spread some joy. How cool is that?
There is more information about the smile game in my book, Joyous Expansion.
Joyous Expansion: Unleashing Your Passions to Lead an Inspired Life contains all of the information I used to create my own personal transformation. I am very proud of what I have accomplished in turning myself from a very sad and anxious person to a happy much less anxious person. I still haven’t gotten rid of all my anxiety, however, it is like night and day. I feel much better and love my life so my.
http://bookland.JoyousExpansion.com
Check it out! I am sure you will get great value from Joyous Expansion: Unleashing Your Passions to Lead an Inspired Life. Your life too will change for the best.
I wish you all the love and joy in the world!