I have likely met a million people in this life during all of the travels and adventures, not to mention the hundreds of students I have worked with and thousands of healings that I have done. I have always had a gregarious personality. That is, until I woke up. Since awakening I have progressively become more isolated as my comfort level around people has diminished. I have noticed that amongst the people I have worked with over the years, the closer they get to awakening the more hermetic they become. What I previously have heard was that the mystics and strict adherents to any discipline nearly always found their cave or mountaintop to withdraw to away from the world in the end, so it seemed a natural part of the process.

My social anxiety had gotten so bad that I began to feel shameful because I was awake after all. Why was I not able to maintain some semblance of control over myself? But exponentially, the more awake I became, the more ‘fear’ I exhibited towards people. The usual advice of ‘placing a white light around me’ or other such spiritual practices to shield oneself simply did not work for me. It was not until recently that I finally decided I needed to contemplate on this phenomena and see if I could get some answers.

As soon as I objectified the anxiety the answer popped into my awareness. The issue with subjectively experiencing the anxiety was that I and others were taking ownership of it. But anxiety as with all fears is a body reaction to its environment. What was the body suddenly afraid of once the Self began its awakening process? One of the beneficial effects of waking up is a much greater, more present awareness of one’s surroundings and people that one comes into contact with.

The problem for the body is that the awakening Self’s primary sense is not the physical body’s organs. The Self primarily senses through itself, extending past the skin of the body. We have always referred to this as the aura, which may in fact be our ‘sixth sense’, although it is in reality the Self’s first sense. The body of course relies on sight, hearing, taste, smell & touch. The Self is able to see (clairvoyance), hear (clairaudience), taste (clairgustance), smell (clairaliance) & touch (clairsentience) – not within the body passively, but out into the environment proactively.

The brain needs reality to be both safe and predictable. It passively senses the world, then retrieves information from past experiences and either designates a situation ‘safe’ or suggests a course of reaction. The brain does not know how to sense actively, or how to process ‘real’ information. All it knows is the reactionary will of its nature. The Self knows – the brain guesses. The brain only needs safe & predictable, or the illusion of it to ‘feel’ at ease. The body being forced by an awakening Self to sense through its metaphysical abilities is a very uncomfortable brain indeed.

To the brain this heightened awareness is mysterious and thus unpredictable, and potentially unsafe. The brain often times is way off in its ability to correctly ascertain people’s motives or demeanor. At the same time the brain is flagging another person as potentially dangerous, the Self is drawn to them in resonance. This means you, the Self, have a brain at times disagreeing with your perception of a situation. The brain’s only defense against this awakening ‘sixth’ sense is to simply designate everyone and everything as potentially dangerous. The result of this is varying degrees of anxiety.

There are many in my family that suffer from social anxiety, but show no signs of awakening any time soon. But these conditions are generally traceable from youth. My social anxiety only appeared when I neared awakening, and has increased exponentially over the course of the past years as I have explored being awake. You will have to ascertain your own situation as to whether your anxiety is purely a genetic inheritance, a symptom of some trauma in your life, or like me it emerged only after a spiritual calling and heightened sense of awareness. You may also be experiencing a much more benign level of anxiety as I am. One can imagine it is different for everyone.

I can go out in public as I must do on occasion to do my shopping and be very much at ease amongst other people. It is only prior to the shopping trip that I actually feel any fear. That is the brain imagining all the horrors that I will encounter along the way. I do not have any answers on how to stop the anxiety aside from withdrawing from people to the degree that you are capable of. This essay was not meant to be a cure. The symptoms are shared by many in these times of awakening. I can tell you that once you are out in public it is never as scary as the brain imagines it will be.

Hopefully knowing the mechanics of your own social anxiety will in the least let you know that it is a normal phenomena of awakening, that you are not alone and that others likewise have not found many answers in traditional medicines or spiritual fixes. Do not be discouraged if people give you advice that simply does not work. This is not a failure on your part. We are all attempting to figure out these times of transition as we go.

What we can know is this…the reason why ‘protection’ does not work is simply because there is no one and no thing actually attacking you. The anxiety is your brain’s response to Self awareness. If you think that is wrong then ask yourself, why is the anxiety present prior to ever leaving the house? You are not picking up anyone’s energies sitting at home worrying. The brain is anxious because your house is safe & predictable, but the outside world with this heightened sense is not.

~ DC Vision