I’m a teacher with social anxiety. Here’s what helps me “get over it.”
If I had to name my biggest fear, it would be a close tie between heights, roller coasters, and people. The first two make sense to most people. You don’t want to fall off things, you don’t want to be flung upside down (or get stuck that way for hours), you don’t want to get decapitated. The fear of other people also might make sense, since most of us generally do fear what other people think of us at at least some point in time.
But my profession — teaching at a university — demands that I deal with people, talk to them, and talk in front of them everyday. Interacting with people and public speaking are the only things I do, really, besides grading endless papers.
The problem? Social anxiety. It can make teaching pretty damn hard.
Especially on top of general anxiety about everything.
Almost every day (though this has gotten significantly better) starts with a battle between what my therapist calls “reason mind” and “emotion mind.” When my alarm goes off, the first thought I have (besides the strong urge to go back to sleep) is about how much I have to accomplish that day and about how class is going to go. These thoughts are generally manageable (and normal for any teacher), because I can usually just ignore them and focus on the present. It’s the thoughts about what people will think of me that causes most of the panic.
And I mean real, physiological panic — sweating, heart pounding, hyperventilating, the whole gamut — especially if I have a lot of meetings scheduled in that day. Most days, I have to do a series of breathing, thinking, and calming exercises before leaving for work (more on that below) so that I can actually start working.
I feel like an anomaly, though, because I genuinely love public speaking and interacting with people. I use a lot of active learning exercises, but one of my favorite things about teaching is lecturing. If I can deliver a memorable, engaging, and funny lecture on a topic about which I feel passionate (or even about one that’s usually dull), it can feel like my biggest accomplishment of the day. It feels much better, even, than getting through a stack of 40 essays. After a good lecture, I’m energized, confident, and ready to tackle the rest of the day.
But the lead-up is so fucking terrifying. And if I perceive the smallest thing to be going awry during the lecture — a cell phone out, a head down, doodling, or pretty much any small activity that signals disengagement — I have a massive inner freak out that leaves me feeling in need of a padded room and a straight jacket. God help me when things actually do go awry — once, a student openly criticized me so much in class over technological difficulties that other students told her to simmer down. I’m generally good at bouncing back and I’m also pretty deadpan, so students don’t notice when my inner self is screaming at me to book it the f*ck out of there. But being able to act and look deadpan doesn’t make inner turmoil any more tolerable.
This love for/terror about public speaking and human interaction makes for quite the quagmire. I could go on about how easy it is to pore over any word I’ve said in class or to students, how many times I’ve feared criticism from students, colleagues, and administrators alike, or how often I get headaches from clenching my teeth in the night. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to navigate said anxiety (all of it, but particularly the social part), given that I love my job and would like to feel that love in a way that isn’t muted with fear.
Here’s what I’ve found that’s working so far (and wonderfully so):
Avoiding assuming what others are thinking/feeling/saying
This is, by far, the biggest helper and I’d argue, probably the most important approach in decreasing anxiety in teaching (and likely in any context). This summer, I read Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher and in it, Stephen Brookfield writes extensively about assumptions we make about our work, our students, and ourselves. He advocates for critically examining and deconstructing said assumptions to help us more effectively reach (and teach!) students. While I (as my therapist pointed out), am probably one of the last people who needs to pore over how effective my teaching is and what I should change about it, I often think of Brookfield’s argument re: the assumptions I make about students and their engagement.
Here are a few problematic assumptions about students:
If students are on their phones, they must be uninterested in my lecture/the video/the activity. Apply same logic to doodling, talking, listening to headphones, or any other activity that isn’t gazing at me like Oliver Twist with a bowl of oatmeal asking, please sir, can I have some more?
If students leave class early abruptly, it means they are bored or that they think the lesson is useless/stupid/insert other negative adjective here.
If students miss class, it means they don’t like it, don’t care, or that I’ve failed in helping them succeed.
If students hand in subpar work, I’m a subpar teacher.
While all of these assumptions can sometimes be true, that doesn’t mean they are always true. Too often, I find myself reacting to any of these situations by what can only be called mental self-flagellation. I avoid the self-flagellation in the moment pretty easily and instead funnel my energies into making sure I’m being engaging and effective. But later, I’ve learned to avoid the whip by thinking about all of the other possible reasons for students engaging in any of the above behaviors.
The most often issue for student disengagement — their life events. Real, tough things that probably feel more important in that moment than the lesson plan. Granted, there are the Snapchatters and students who are deliberately disconnecting themselves from the class, but I’ve learned that the reason behind what I’m perceiving as students disliking me/my class is almost never what I assume it to be.
In other words, I try to avoid assuming the worst, particularly when it’s the worst about my class or myself.
Acting opposite to how I really feel
I have to credit this advice to my therapist, who told me to act opposite to the current emotion I have, as it can naturally dampen it if you change body language and tone, or if you put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t feel the way you do. In other words, act as if you feel brave when you’re feeling scared, excited when you’re feeling dread, or calm when you’re overwhelmed. If you’re truly inhabiting the new role, the other emotion tends to subside, at least until you have time for self-care. This tactic is especially helpful in throwing myself into a lecture, a one-on-one conference, or into “time to work” mode so that I can get out of bed in the morning.
The power pose
A friend told me about this one, but there’s also a TedTalk here that expands on the idea. Basically, if you pose like Superman, you feel like Superman.
Other poses that likely would appear strange to onlookers, like lying on the floor with my palms up, toward the ceiling
Of course, I do this with my door closed, and it is somewhat hard to get fully into because I always fear a janitor will come in unexpectedly and think I’m dead. However, stretching out your body when you feel like curling inward can be very relaxing, and putting your palms up toward the ceiling is basically physically signals acceptance and willingness.
Mindfulness/attention to the present
You don’t have to do anything special for this one — you don’t have to sit cross-legged on the floor, have a yoga mat handy, or turn your palms upward, unless you want to. You can do it in your head, just by focusing on the five senses in the moment and immersing yourself in the present moment. Every day, I find something on my way to class to focus on to help keep anxious thoughts at bay.
This could be looking intently at the geese that roam (and shit) around campus. It could be listening to music (or the geese). It could be paying attention to what the ground feels like against my feet — each of them — or holding a warm drink in my hand and taking in the warmth. In class, it takes shape by focusing only on the minute I’m in and what I have to accomplish in it. No thinking about after class, what happened before class, where my students are who are missing, none of that. This strategy has helped me manage anxiety in the moment so that I could bounce back quickly into teaching.
Read more on mindfulness here from people who have more authority than me to talk about it.
Recalling successes
When I get nervous that my students, colleagues, or boss think poorly of me, or if class just plain doesn’t go the way I intended, I think of better times — good classes, a lecture I aced, or a career accomplishment — to help remind myself that thoughts aren’t facts.
Perhaps that’s the takeaway — to fight social anxiety, or any anxiety, we should remind ourselves that our thoughts aren’t facts. We might have to do this every day, several times a day, but this approach can really help curb intense anxiety when done consistently.
How I remind myself of the truth:
I started this exercise when I started therapy, and it’s been really helpful for me. It goes like this: when you have a negative thought, like “my students don’t like me,” you acknowledge it as a thought instead of as a true statement; thus, you’d replace it with something like “I had the thought that my students don’t like me.” I’ve done this more times than I can count, now, and I was surprised at how adding five words to a sentence could help distance myself from the thought, and therefore the emotion.
My final nugget of wisdom then, is this: Don’t accept your thoughts as facts.
Thoughts are thoughts, simple as that.
