124: 2 Practical Steps to Stop Worrying What Other People Think

Do you find it hard to relax around other people? Do you get stuck in your head, worry about what others are thinking, or feel self-conscious in social situations, whether you're at work, with friends, or simply out in public?

I feel with you. I used to be afraid to leave the house and struggled with crippling social anxiety.

In this episode, I share the two skills that allowed me to outgrow these limitations, access more of who I am, and experience a sense of calm and peace in situations that used to have me sweating.

The Two Skills:

✨ Emotional regulation – how to calm your nervous system through your breath and reconnecting with your body.

✨ Authenticity – tangible and practical ways to reconnect with who you are, so you can feel safer being you.

If you're tired of overthinking every interaction and want to feel more comfortable, present, and at ease around other people, this episode is for you.

Questions for reflection from this episode:
💛How am I different from a year ago?
💛What are the ways that I've grown and changed that I really like?
💛In what ways do I navigate difficult situations better than I used to?

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My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

Transcript

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I used to be afraid to leave the house. I had severe social anxiety and situational selective mutism. I was deeply insecure. And being out in public, let alone in social situations, was a really deeply uncomfortable experience. And when I was 15, I asked myself, am I going to live this way for the rest of my life? And I decided that it was not possible. I was not going to let that happen. And there was no reason why things couldn't change. So if you find it difficult to relax in social situations inside and outside work, if going out in public makes you feel self-conscious or insecure, if it gets you in your head, if you worry about what people are thinking, then I want to share with you two skills that have allowed me to find comfort and safety within myself so that I am able to relax when out in public and in social situations. I don't even think now when I walk out the door. I don't even think about how busy it might be in the place that I want to go to. I am now absolutely okay in a crowd. And this is coming from someone who couldn't even leave the house. You don't have to be born an extrovert to find that safety and that peace within yourself. Let me tell you how you can start practicing these skills yourself so that you can start to see the change that you wish to see. You're listening to episode 124 of Beyond Skin Picking and Hair Pulling. The number 24 is my favorite number, just a fun fact about me. My name is Rafaela Marie. I'm your host. I've healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking through addressing the root cause and treating it like an addiction. Now I'm a coach helping others like you to do the same. And I share absolutely everything I know with you in this podcast. If you appreciate the work that I do and want to support me and this community, make sure you hit like and subscribe, leave a five-star review, or leave your thoughts in the comments down below. Any kind of interaction you give with this podcast really helps to push it out to more people who need this kind of support. And if you personally are wanting more support, I would love to invite you to a very special opportunity to share your story with me. This is an opportunity to feel deeply seen, heard, and understood by someone who gets it. I will also share with you my insight into the root cause of why you pick, pull, or bite at your body and help you figure out the best next steps forward for you so that you can feel like you're finally moving somewhere tangible. If that's calling to, go ahead and click on the link in the show notes. I want to give a quick shout out to Tamina, Ava, Harley, Catherine, Ina, and Sammy. These incredible women have inspired this podcast episode. They are members of Beyond Support Group, my free support group on WhatsApp. If you want to join us, you'll also find the link in the show notes. Just yesterday, someone posted in the group a question and a really beautiful conversation unfolded around how do I feel secure and safe and grounded in myself in situations where I inherently don't feel that way. I just quickly Googled the word inherent and I want to retract that word that I used because I don't believe it's inherent that we feel so uncomfortable and unsafe and full of anxiety and self-doubt and insecurity in out in public or in social situations. I don't believe that it's just a natural part of a human being. I do believe that we learn to feel unsafe around other people, either through personal experiences and how we've been treated, or maybe we've witnessed something really scary. We've seen someone be hurt either physically or verbally, or maybe you just never learnt how to be emotionally safe around someone, which is so true for so many people, because most of our parents didn't know how to handle their emotions. And so if someone doesn't know how to handle their own emotions, they can't create an emotionally safe environment for another person. If it were not possible to feel more comfortable and safe and secure within yourself, more grounded, I would not be here speaking with you today. You can learn to walk into a room full of people and feel grounded in yourself. You can learn to walk out in public in a crowded, chaotic space and feel like you own the space that you're in. Not the entire space that you're in, but the space that you take up, you own it and you feel comfortable in that space. It is possible. And I will fight anyone who disagrees, including you, metaphorically, of course. Because I, this is something I'm so, so deeply passionate about. Because there is so much goodness in you. There is so much more of you to be experienced. And all these fears and these anxieties and these insecurities that every human being has, they can become a cage. And then we get so used to being inside that cage that we don't know that life exists outside the bars. And we think, well, I just got to find a way to somehow find my peace inside these bars, find comfort inside these bars. Kind of just accept that this is what life is when it's not. I even feel as I'm speaking, I can feel the emotion rising up my chest and into my face because you deserve more and you can have more of yourself, more inner confidence and groundedness and peace within yourself. That's not to say that I don't feel insecure sometimes. In fact, this week I have been struggling with finding ideas for content to post on social media. And I go through these phases of I guess you could call healing or growth, where I feel like a fucking dickhead posting on social media. And that's been one of the phases that I'm going through. But I know that I'm gonna come out the other side. I'm going to feel super inspired at some point. I'm just sharing that so you know that you and I are human and we're really not that different from each other. And so the two skills I want to share with you and share specifically how you can start to integrate it more into your life is the skill of self-regulation and the skill of connecting to your authentic self. Now, I know the authentic self can sound a bit vague, so I am going to give a very clear explanation of what I mean about that. But we're going to start with self-regulation, which just means allowing, giving yourself the space to feel your emotions. And to feel our emotions, we want to connect more to our body because our body is where we experience emotion. And if we are constantly in our heads, we are going to be constantly disconnected from our body. And so it's going to be really hard to self-regulate. But we want to learn how to notice our body more. Notice those sensations and those signs of, oh, I need a break, I need water, I need food, I need connection with another human being. I need to go outside and get some sun on my skin. Our body is constantly communicating to us what we need. But if we're chronically dysregulated, we get really confused about well, what do I actually need? I don't know what I need. I'm feeling something. I don't know what that means. The more we practice connecting to our body, the more fluent we become in our own language, our body's language. The more fluent we become, the more we are able to feel what we're feeling, respond to it in a healthy way, and also express ourselves in a healthy way, which then allows us to regulate, self-regulate ourselves. Now, there are so many ways we can explore the topic of self-regulation, but I'm going to keep it really simple. And I'm going to share what one lady, her name is Sammy, she's an amazing lady. I've known her for many years by now. In fact, she's now a mentor in my program called Strength. She's been with me since the beginning. She's amazing. And she posted a voice message in Beyond Support Group. How to self-regulate more, how to connect more to the body. Because when we are in these moments where we are feeling really uncomfortable and insecure, if we are able to connect into our body and feel what we're feeling to breathe and connect to our breath, we can actually help ourselves to regulate and calm down and feel more secure and safe in ourselves. It's part of the process. But it can feel almost impossible to do that. And that's what came up in the conversation, too. It's like it almost connecting in with the body in those moments when you feel super overwhelmed or anxious or really uncomfortable and insecure, connecting in can almost make it worse and feel more overwhelming, which is normal. It doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. But this is what Sammy shared is that we want to train ourselves how to breathe deeply and connect with our body in a safe place first when you're not in a moment of stress. And the more you practice this in a safe space, the more you actually get to learn the skill. And Sammy shared this example in the group. She has twin boys, and she said that in moments of calm, we practice breathing. They practice deep breathing to regulate so that they have more access to that skill in moments where there's big emotion and it's harder to regulate. Because remember, this is a skill. We are, we need to learn how to do this. And if you weren't taught as a child, as most of us weren't, then we need to learn as adults. And in fact, it's one of those skills that we're constantly going to be growing and improving in, regardless of whether you learned as a kid or not. So the time to practice connecting into breath, breathing deeply, because many of us actually don't realize how shallow we actually breathe. And so breathing deeply into your stomach, noticing how your chest expands, reminding yourself to do that when you're in a space where you do feel safe. And then from there, you can take small steps and start to practice that a little bit in areas where you feel just a little bit uncomfortable. It's like in school when you do a fire drill. The reason why we do fire drills is so that in the moment, if there was actually a fire, everyone has already practiced how to do it. And so while it might still be chaotic and stressful, it will still go better than if we hadn't practiced it at all. I wonder if you can imagine if you'd never, if you didn't even know what a fire drill was, and then suddenly there was a fire and the fire alarm went off, and someone is trying to direct you on what to do. Try not just not just you, but an entire school full of children. It would be mayhem. And so think of that in relation to connecting to your body, your breath, and helping yourself to regulate and feel safe in yourself in a situation that is kind of like a fire. Now, connecting to your authenticity is such a beautiful way of practicing this. And I'm going to get to that in just a second, but I want to share with you one other tip or insight is that sometimes if we are feeling super overwhelmed, it may not be the time or the space to actually feel what you're feeling. There is a reason why we're able to suppress our emotions, and that is because sometimes emotional suppression is the healthiest and best thing to do in that situation. It's like a paramedic. If they've just arrived to the scene of a horrific car crash, is that the time for them to just take some space for themselves and process what they're seeing and what they're feeling? Absolutely not. They need to suppress their emotions so that they can be effective in that situation. And then afterwards, when they're in a calm, safe space, then they can process. Same thing with a regular human being in a regular day. There will be certain times where it is not appropriate and not helpful to fully sit and feel all your feelings. Especially if you think about maybe there's some people you know that you don't feel comfortable feeling big feelings around. That's not because there's something wrong with you. That's when we want to choose to suppress the emotion and come back to it later. The key point there is to come back to it later. That is what we could call healthy suppression. It's functional suppression. Dysfunctional would be I'm going to suppress this and try and forget it's there at all and just go about my life and just try and never ever think about it again. That's unhealthy. It's what a lot of us do. But this self-regulation is what will help you to start to build a safe connection with your body again and start to feel your feelings again. And yes, it's going to feel rough. It's going to feel super uncomfortable at times. And sometimes it's going to feel impossible. And that's okay. It doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It just means you're a human figuring this out. And it simply is messy. Now coming into connecting to the authentic self, this is a way that I personally found it just totally, it made life fun. Life was really hard for me as a teenager in my early 20s, just moving through mental illness that was never diagnosed or addressed, and also working through a lot of the trauma that I that I had experienced. But connecting to my authentic self made the process enjoyable in so many ways. And this is where it doesn't even really feel like you're doing healing work. But let me let's get clear on what is authenticity. Authenticity is the act of living in alignment with your values. And through doing that, you discover and practice many different ways to express yourself so that you become more of who you are. Now, if we look at values, values can be seen as emotional experiences that we want more of. I want more adventure, creativity, connection, love, depth, integrity, family, community. These are all experiences that we'd love to have. And the thing is, yes, it can be very powerful to really get super clear on what your values are and actually have them in written form. This is something that I do with all of my clients is taking them through this very real step-by-step process to essentially creating your blueprint to help you to guide yourself in connecting more deeply with yourself. Now we can do it in that way, but we don't have to. It's very helpful, but values, we will feel them. We will be drawn to them. Becoming more authentic does not feel, and I'm gonna slightly contradict myself in a second, does not require effort. It does not feel like effort. Becoming more authentic feels like you're coming home to yourself. There is joy and curiosity and wonder, and you feel like you're living, like you're experiencing something. Now, the effort and the difficulty that comes with that is that many of us hold a lot of resistance and fear around being who we are. That is where the effort comes in. We must put in a certain amount of effort to move through those internal roadblocks and resistance, fear that we hold around accessing more of who we are. But the actual accessing of ourselves, it's a beautiful experience and it's deeply healing, and we learn so much from ourselves. And I want to share with you a quote from Brene Brown on authenticity. Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are. Choosing authenticity means cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggles, and nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe that we are enough. So, how do we embrace more of ourselves? How do we embrace the imperfections? How do we begin to show ourselves that we are enough as we are so that we can start to let go of those overbearing insecurities that make us so uncomfortable around other people? So let's look at some really fun ways that you can connect to your authenticity and just see what stands out to you, see what calls to you a little bit. One of the ladies in the group mentioned that she wants to fasten different kinds of clothes as a way to express herself. And I love that because clothing can be such a beautiful way of expressing yourself. And you'll know you're expressing yourself through your clothing when when when what you're wearing feels good. You can explore your authentic self through different kinds of hobbies or through singing out loud in the car. Singing out loud in the car specifically is one way that I explored my own voice. Now, having situational selective mutism, as you can imagine, there were moments when I could not speak. But then when I did speak, I would often mumble and cut my sentences short and also feel terrified if I had too much focus on me. I was terrified of my own voice. Now, I wanted to access more of it. And so I would belt out in the car songs from Cage the Elephant. Now, if you know who Cage the Elephant is, you can imagine the kind of songs that I would have been singing, but it felt so good. It felt, and I when I mean belt out, I mean I would be singing at the top of my lungs. And when I first started singing in the car, I felt really cringe and uncomfortable and embarrassed. It felt so weird. It was not fun to start with, but it was kind of exciting. It's like, well, no one can hear me. No one can really see me. And over time, the discomfort started to fade because I started to find safety in it because I kept doing it and nothing bad happened. I kept being able to explore my voice in that way and nothing bad happened. And so I started to feel more and more safe. And then I started to feel more and more joy and it was fun. And I made myself laugh. It was an adventure in itself. And I didn't start doing that because someone said that I should do it or I read it in a book somewhere. Not that that's a bad thing. I mean, you're hearing me talk about it on a podcast. But I did it because I felt drawn to it. That's it. That's enough of an excuse to explore an aspect of yourself. It's just the fact that you feel drawn to it. There's something about it that's calling to you. That's enough. And through doing that, you will start to, you can start to expand your capacity for self-regulation. Because the more you feel safe with yourself, the more you'll start to feel safe in situations where you don't typically feel that way. Now, me singing in the car sounds inconsequential, but that was me learning how to feel safe with me. This is a way for you to step out of your comfort zone in a safe way. It felt uncomfortable to sing in the car, but it was still safe. So I could still remain connected to myself. If I were to try and sing at that stage in my life in front of people, I wouldn't have grown from that experience because it would have been so far out of my comfort zone. It just would have been, it just would have been deeply triggering and would have just added to the embarrassment and the shame that I felt about myself. Something like that would have been too much. Now, would I feel uncomfortable singing upon singing in front of a bunch of people? Yes. But I could do it and be okay. I could do it and laugh and find some humor and fun in it. Because it's not that I'm an excellent singer. I'm okay. Your ears won't bleed, but I'm not um talented. These little micro steps count. And the beautiful thing about exploring the connection and building that connection to your authentic self is that it makes life enjoyable. Even if life is really hard, or there are certain aspects that are hard, you find these little pockets of fun and curiosity and lightness and adventure with yourself. You start to become your own best friend. So I wonder what it is that you feel drawn towards. And this is about you. It doesn't need to be in front of other people unless you feel like you are drawn towards that. But maybe the first step is just exploring that weirdness with yourself. Explore your own weirdness. Be weird around yourself and see how cringy it is, and also realize that nothing bad is going to happen. You're allowed to be cringe around. You know how many times I have walked past my reflection at home alone and I've made a really fucking weird face of myself. And it's been a bit cringe, but I've also laughed. Or I'll walk around the apartment doing weird little dance moves or behaving like a gremlin. It's weird, but life is weird. It's weird that we are consciously living on this planet. We don't need to take ourselves that seriously. So, what do you feel drawn towards? What's something you feel drawn to explore about yourself? And indulge a little time or a lot of time in that thing. Explore the many wonderful different facets and aspects of who you are. Become your best friend. And through that process, you will naturally start to build safety with yourself, a deeper connection with yourself. And as you practice those skills of just breathing more deeply, breathing into your body and noticing your body, those things combined, you'll find that there won't be one single moment of change, but you'll find that you'll stop one day and you'll look back and you'll realize, oh wow. I feel that feeling that used to just constantly accompany me, I don't feel that anymore. That's how I felt about depression. When I was I was deeply depressed in my teenage years. And one day I just stopped and I thought, wow, I haven't felt that crushing weight in my chest for a while now. These, this discomfort and this pain that lives in your body. So much of healing is just slowly letting it go through experiencing life and choosing to experience life. And it you let go of just these little pieces, and it's so subtle you won't notice it in the moment. You might have some moments where you notice it, but most of the time we don't notice. And then you just look back and you think, holy shit, I'm a different person. So let's look at how to measure our progress. How do we know we're actually going anywhere? Because it can feel like this is really hard. I feel like I'm not getting much back from it. How can we help ourselves to notice and appreciate the effort that we're putting in and how far it's taken you? And I bet you're listening to this podcast, I bet this isn't the first time you've thought about these things. Uh, it's not the first time you've tried to work on yourself as a human being. I'm so I want you to do this now for yourself as you're listening. Ask yourself, and I'm gonna put these in the show notes so you can copy them and save them for later if you like. How am I different from a year ago? What's the difference between me now and me a year ago? In what ways have I grown or changed? What are the ways that I've grown and changed that I really like? What can I appreciate? In what ways do I navigate difficult situations better than I used to? So you know those ones that you know make you uncomfortable? Like social situations for me. There were there were many, many years where I really struggled with the social anxiety, but even in the middle of struggling with it, I could reflect and look back and go, whoa, it was way worse two years ago. Holy shit. And that allowed me to appreciate how far I come and know that I will continue to improve. The same goes for you. And this is something I would love to invite you to do now. So in social situations that you're maybe nervous for, or if you have to do a presentation or go to an event or any any kind of situation where you know that it can be really overwhelming and uncomfortable for you, I want you to afterwards, after the event, just reflect on what did I do well? What can I appreciate myself for? I do this kind of reflection after many podcast episodes that I record, after many master classes and group coaching calls and coaching calls that I do as a way to reflect and appreciate because we are so quick to judge ourselves and see where we fall short and where we can do better, that we forget to notice how far we've actually already come in the amazing ways that we have shown up today. The best way we can measure progress is simply by comparing ourselves to ourselves. That's the only person you should be comparing yourself to. And if you're thinking, yeah, but I remember I used to be a lot more carefree, or you're reminiscing and missing a version of yourself from the past. I just want you to know that that version of yourself that you wish you could get back to, she hasn't experienced the things that you've experienced. You are not the same person that you were back then. And now you get to work through and process the things that you've experienced and become this version of you, whatever that is, today's version of you. That version of you back then didn't have the same responsibilities, didn't know the things that you know now, hasn't had the extra experiences that you now have. You're not the same person that you were. And it's wonderful to have that memory of a version of ourselves that we just love that we could do those things or be that way. And you have grown, you have changed, you are now a different person. There are still aspects of that version of you within you, but they will be expressed in different ways now. There will be a new way for you to bring those parts of you out into the life that you currently live. This is being human. We are constantly evolving and growing and changing in our expression of ourselves. And when we realize how fucking weird that is, and stop taking it so damn seriously. I mean, take the serious things seriously. But you and I are super weird, and that's okay. That's fun, that's cool, that's really fun to explore. Normal, average things are not fun to explore. I would much rather something a bit weird and like, what's that? Some something that lets me get curious. That's fun. That's interesting. You are interesting and fun. And it is an honor to know you and to get to know you. If you have any questions to this episode, you can share them in Beyond Support Group on WhatsApp. That's my free WhatsApp support group. You can go ahead and click on the link in the show notes to join us. And also, that's a place as well. If you want to request a specific episode, you can request it in that group. Thank you again to all the wonderful human beings who inspired this episode and helped me to deliver this very important message. If you appreciated it, don't forget to hit like and subscribe. Thank you so, so much for hanging out with me. I really, really do care that you're here. And I so look forward to seeing you next Tuesday for the next episode of Beyond Skin Picking and Heck.