*As originally seen on Forbes.com

Why don’t people want to return to the office?

I’ll bet you have a zillion ideas or reasons.

I’ll also bet many of them are due to social anxiety.

There are many types of anxiety:

• anticipation of danger
• anticipation of shame
• anticipation of rejection

… to name only a few. And do you notice that most (or all) involve more than one person? According to research from the American Psychological Association, 49% of respondents said they feel uneasy about adjusting to in-person interaction post pandemic.

What Is Social Anxiety?

The ADAA says: “Social Anxiety (AKA Social Phobia) is a mental health condition where a person experiences intense or persistent fear of being judged, evaluated, or rejected in social or performance situations.” And this fear can affect activities as simple as answering questions in meetings to talking to a cashier in a store. People with social anxiety worry about acting or appearing visually anxious or being viewed as stupid, awkward or boring.

Social anxiety is an overwhelming fear that affects self-confidence, relationships, and work or school life. It can damage one’s ability to be promoted, to be trusted, to be seen as a strong leader. Social anxiety can be triggered by perceived or actual scrutiny by others.

And it’s all over the workplace.

Have you experienced social anxiety?

I have. And I see my coaching clients and their team members experiencing it too.

Where Social Anxiety Appears At Work

I see 5 main causes of social anxiety at work.

• Covid/Illness – We still see stress in re-learning to share a workspace with others, moving from isolation and flexible hours back to more structure. A lot of people are simply out of practice or no longer comfortable working in close quarters. And is it ok to wear a mask if a nearby colleague is coughing excessively? Or will we be shamed for it?
• After Vacation – Colleagues may be envious, bitter that you “bailed” and missed a big deadline, disappointed that you weren’t present for new work allocation, and more.
• Maternity – Maternity leave can cause tremendous Social Anxiety as well. TheHRDirector.com has a fascinating blog on What’s causing maternity leave return anxiety? Pressure around flexible hours, childcare, not enough time with their children, not wanting to be away from home and feeling out of the loop in the workplace rank high in their research.
• After Injury – Another time when we feel out of the loop is after an extended injury where we couldn’t show up for our team. And we sometimes get shamed for it.
• Miscarriage – Harvard Business Review noted that about one in four women experiences pregnancy loss through miscarriage, stillbirth, or very early death of a newborn. But this is rarely talked about, which creates great discomfort when the grieving parents return to work and have painful interaction with colleagues who may know nothing of their suffering.

To understand what’s happening in your brain during social anxiety see our Stress, Change, and Isolation Infographic.

4 Cures For Social Anxiety

Here’s how to navigate and cure social anxiety.

1.    Question Your Beliefs: First, notice your beliefs: about yourself, about others, about things/situations outside of you, about time: mostly the future or past, and possibly even about the present as well. Beliefs are decisions. What decisions are you making? How do they make you feel? Would a different decision be more helpful?

2.    Quiet Your Anxious Monologue: Next, notice if you have an anxious monologue running through your thoughts. If so, scan for signs of social acceptance. Some examples are a friendly smile from others, open and welcoming body language from others, a simple “hello” or even basic eye contact from others. By scanning for signs of social acceptance you will train your brain to focus on connection with others. And this will quiet your anxious monologue.

3.    Normalize Your Experience: heck, some anxiety is okay. It can help protect you or prepare you for a challenging experience. The question is, do you see it as fear or excitement? Excitement and anticipation can be reframed as a growth experience. Would that be helpful?

4.    Unpack And Update Your Organismic Rights: use the table below to note which of your Org Rights you need to get present to. In Social Anxiety scenarios you are either diminishing your rights, or you are letting others do so. The most often I see are reduced right to exist and right to have needs. Other people may attempt to diminish or not honor your org rights, that is what blaming, guilting, gas lighting, shaming in general, fat shaming, thin shaming, gay shaming and more is all about. But you get to decide whether you take on their unkind behavior or not.

Is social anxiety keeping you from returning to the office? If so, how would you like to shift it?