My social anxiety is destroying my life

Why? Maybe that is the first hurdle.

 

When I was your age, I was really shy, pathologically so. I felt like people were judging me all the time, about everything even about how I walked. No way could I go to a school dance. I hated getting on buses because, for a minute, everyone was looking at me.

I'm not that way anymore. Many things helped, but I'll share one. When I started to meditate, I started to realize that everyone has this monkey-mind going in the back of their head, constantly judging and evaluating everything. So, it's kinda true that everyone is judging me, but they can't help it, and they're doing that to everyone all the time. This helped me to lighten up about it.

When you're young, you're kinda obsessed about being cool. But eventually you realize that it doesn't matter very much what other people think of you. What's important is how much you can love yourself.