My friend gets anxious and feels insecure when she has to be in a company with a lot of strangers. Going to an event or function has always been torture for her. She enjoyed quarantine like no other. And now the thought that quarantine will end takes away her inner peace. I supported her every time and said: “Breathe deeply, keep your feet on the ground! Everything will be fine!” This helped relieve the tension, but the situation repeated itself every time in a new way. “When I come to a company, I don’t know where to stand, how to sit. It’s easier when there is some goal, joint work, instructions. But when you just need to communicate, it’s so difficult! I don’t know how to talk about the weather and general things,” she says. Where does insecurity and increased anxiety when communicating with strangers come from? I won’t surprise you if I say that it’s from our past experience. Any contact with new people or situations causes us to distrust and feel a little anxious. This is normal. Before we start making contact, we need to get to know each other and make sure that the people around us are friendly, positive, and safe. But what if the anxiety during contact is too great, worries us long before contact, or even makes us avoid communication? First of all, there is no need to fight it. Any of our emotions or reactions carry important information about us. Listen to your anxiety. Ask yourself, what am I really afraid of? What unpleasant things can happen that I don't want to encounter? Often, our fears and anxieties are associated with negative beliefs about ourselves or excessive demands. For example, the fear of being ridiculous, showing ourselves incompetent, the fear of not living up to some ideal or image. This is associated with experiencing unpleasant, losing situations in the past. Once, perhaps in childhood, you found yourself in an unfavorable, traumatic situation with the participation of other people. For example, when you were publicly scolded by your parents or teachers, or you failed at something and were ridiculed. Then you experienced a storm of negative emotions and did not receive enough support and understanding. Then you fixed yourself in the role of the one who failed. And now in each subsequent situation you subconsciously prepare to meet the previous experience again, the signal system turns on: “This is dangerous!” This is where the trap lies. The situation has long passed, and you continue to drag it through life, like an old suitcase, and each time you prepare to open it again in new circumstances. Sounds familiar? By dragging around such a suitcase of past experience, you deprive yourself of joy and satisfaction from life, the opportunity to be yourself, to get to know the world and people. It is important to separate the negative experiences of the past situation from the current situation. If it is difficult to do this on your own, working with a psychologist can help. Allow yourself to live a new experience! Feel positive emotions, explore the world and yourself in it, experiment, make mistakes, do not conform to excessively high criteria or rules. Just be... Do you have such "suitcases" that you carry with you through life? The text was prepared by Galina Kapshiy, psychologist/psychotherapist of the Alter Ego center