Polina Pushkareva Instagram – How I decided that I am done with my social anxiety ⠀ I’ve always felt uncomfortable at cool events. Why? ⠀ -I’m an immigrant. Sometimes I say something, and people don’t understand me, so I have to repeat/explain it. ⠀ -Always and everywhere I’m the youngest. ⠀ -I don’t have that many contacts yet, so that I could come to the event and get to know everyone at once. Plus, most often I attend events alone. ⠀ And the most important point is that I have social anxiety, and for me events must be the most difficult thing in life. But I need to attend events, because life and business are built primarily on communication and connections. ⠀ Every time I arrived at the event, I promised myself: “Ok, today you will talk to people.” And I’ve never done that. I was just looking at how people take a glass of wine, make compliments and calmly start communicating with each other. At the same time, I was getting wildly nasty at myself for the fact that I was losing opportunities. ⠀ The person who helped to overcome social anxiety was… Kris Jenner, who I met at a recent event. ⠀ I saw everyone approach her saying “Hello.” Then I realized that I have just two options: to take all my uncertainty and shove it up my ass, switch off my brain and just say to her: “Hello” or not to do it and regret it. I’ve chosen the first option. ⠀ What if social anxiety is what we can control and be in charge of? What if you just need to understand how much we lose here and now, when we are afraid to approach people first and just communicate? ⠀ That evening I met a million people, we exchanged contacts, and I even met my followers. And all this is thanks to a simple explanation to your brain that sometimes it just needs to shut up. Los Angeles, California