Areas › Worry and anxiety › Being seen and judged
Try this with someone you trust. They say a word, you say the first word back, fast, ten or so in a row. Black, white, mum, dad, sky. Then notice that nothing strange came out of you.
Underneath a lot of social fear sits the belief that speaking without preparing will let something humiliating escape. A minute of quick word association hands you your own evidence against that, in your own voice, which is worth far more than anyone reassuring you. Keep the pace fast, because the whole point is that there was no time to plan.
Qur’an and Sunnah
do not assert your own goodness: He knows best who is mindful of Him (Quran 53:32). Careful self presentation is what is being set down here, and unrehearsed speech is part of what that frees you from.
ٱلَّذِينَ يَجۡتَنِبُونَ كَبَٰٓئِرَ ٱلۡإِثۡمِ وَٱلۡفَوَٰحِشَ إِلَّا ٱللَّمَمَۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ وَٰسِعُ ٱلۡمَغۡفِرَةِۚ هُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِكُمۡ إِذۡ أَنشَأَكُم مِّنَ ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَإِذۡ أَنتُمۡ أَجِنَّةࣱ فِي بُطُونِ أُمَّهَٰتِكُمۡۖ فَلَا تُزَكُّوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡۖ هُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِمَنِ ٱتَّقَىٰٓ
As for those who avoid grave sins and foul acts, though they may commit small sins, your Lord is ample in forgiveness. He has been aware of you from the time He produced you from the earth and from your hiding places in your mothers’ wombs, so do not assert your own goodness:He knows best who is mindful of Him
Qur’an 53:32read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A systematic review of placebo controlled trials found cognitive behavioural therapy efficacious across the adult anxiety disorders, social anxiety included, with medium to large effects on the symptoms targeted. Exercises like this one sit inside those packages as behavioural experiments. The review is evidence for the treatment as a whole rather than for one minute of word association on its own.
Stefan G. Hoffman; Jasper A. J. Smits (2008). Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adult Anxiety Disorders. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Watching yourself speak unplanned and come out fine convinces in a way that being told never does.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
When a step does not happen, cut the next one down without any speech about it. Smaller, and carry on.
Unless you have turned up somewhere in fancy dress, you are not the main thing on anyone's mind. Most of the people around you are working out where to park and what they are going to eat.
You might manage the smile and find the hello impossible. That is not the day going wrong. It is the ladder showing you where the next rung actually belongs.