Why am I so awkward all the time?

Yo, people, you’re amazing.  Thanks for tuning in, and for having the guts to ask a great question.  You asked, “Why Am I So Awkward All The Time?”... I absolutely love it, and I can’t wait to get to nitty gritty and provide you with two things.  

1. To help you realize why you feel awkward sometimes, and

2. Is there anything that you can do to feel a little less awkward?  

Can I ask you a question?  What exactly does it mean to feel awkward?  Think about it…Well, let’s break it down.  To feel awkward means:

To feel uneasy, unsure, uncomfortable, embarrassed, humiliated, nervous, afraid, terrified, and/or self-conscious.

How about for you?  What happens when you feel awkward?  Most people say that they blush, or they feel a pit in their stomach or throat (making it hard to breathe or talk), or their muscles tense up or become jittery, or their mind goes blank, or they feel that their heart is going to simply burst out of their chest… but why does this happen?  Well, I have an explanation for you, and it begins with your lovely and awesome brain.  Your brain is a survival organ, this means that one of your brain’s main jobs is to make sure that you are safe.  So when your brain thinks that pain is coming, and by the way, I don’t just mean physical pain, It can be mental or emotional pain, It sounds the alarm and it begins to wave the yellow flag… and that’s what your uneasy, unsure, blushing, pit in your stomach, jitteriness, cloudy brain, fast heart-rate response is… basically your brain is saying, "bruh, you better get ready to fight, flight, or freeze, cause something either is happening, or is about to happen."

Now this can happen to you when you’re standing on top of a cliff, or around a really scary dog (or a wildly unpredictable and crazy cat), or while you’re driving, or before a big game or performance, or while you’re watching a really scary show, but this can also happen to you when someone gives you a weird look as you’re walking down the hall, or when you go in for a high five, and you end up with a super weird hug, or when you say something that doesn’t even make sense, or when your zipper is down, or you find out that you’ve had something in your teeth all day, or you make a plan to dress up with your friends, and then you’re the only that actually does it, or when you run into a door, or totally biff it down the stairs, or when no one laughs at your joke, or when you have to make a presentation in front of the class, or when you’re trying to say two words, but instead what comes out of your mouth, is actually some weird concoction of those two words, and no one knows what you just said, including you, or when someone waves at you… and you get kind of excited and wave back, but then you realize that they were really waving at someone else, or when your mom or dad drops you off at school, and as you’re leaving the car, they say something completely ridiculous like, “I love you, have fun,” and you immediately wish that you could jump into a rocket and fly to the moon… yeah, I do crap like that to my poor kiddos.

Anyways, I think you get the idea, there is an infinite amount of possibilities that could happen, that can trigger this response.  

One of the reasons why your brain loses it, is because it thinks that you’ve broken some social rule, or social expectation, and as a result, your world is literally going to explode, and your social life is pretty much over, forever, and ever, and ever… yeah, our brains can be a little dramatic and fatalistic… meaning that whatever has happened, will never get better.  Your brain also loses it because right now, you are highly motivated to feel like you belong, that you are liked, that you are seen as cool, and that you are liked by the people that you like… because of this hyperawareness… or this intense focus, when mistakes are made, they just seem really large, and scary.

Oh yeah, one more small thing… Whether you’re in Junior High, Middle School, or High School, congratulations, you have arrived at the peak of your awkward years!  Yippee!  But listen, I’m not here to deliver unfortunate news, I’m here to offer you some skillz that will absolutely pay the billz.  Some tools that you can begin to use right now, to settle that lovely brain of yours, to keep you moving forward (instead of hiding out in your basement), and to help you live your best life.  You ready?  Excellent.

• Own the awkward moment!  Basically there are 3 ways of dealing with an awkward moment.  1) You can make a big deal of it, 2) You can pretend like it didn’t happen and move on, and 3) you can own it, develop a sense of humor, and laugh at it or about it.  When some awkward moment happens, just call it out, own it, and laugh about it, and that is a great way to relieve some of the awkwardness.  You can say something like:

  1. “Wow, that was amazing!”

  2. Or, “yeah… i’m still learning how to talk, or walk, or jump, or balance…”

  3. Or “did I just say that?”

  4. Or “wow, that was rough”

  5. Or “can you hold on a sec while i remove my foot from my mouth?”

  6. Anyways, I’m sure you can come up with way better lines than I can, so maybe practice them ahead of time, so that when you get ambushed by the awkwardness monster, you can just plug in one of your lines, and not feel like you have to hide under a blanket.

• Take the sting out of awkwardness!  Look, awkwardness is not a death sentence, at most it’s a flesh wound.  It’s not a dragon, it’s more like an iguana.  So instead of constantly selling yourself the idea that awkward moments are horrible, terrible things that you have to avoid at all times, instead start teaching your brain that life is a science lab… a classroom, and that you’re going to go through many social experiments, and that some of them are going to be successes, and some of them will blow up in your face.  Say it with me my friend… It is what it is!  Life is a process, and you will learn line upon line, a little here, and a little there, and at times the most painful experiences will be the most important and memorable ones.  So commit right now to approach life like a scientist, instead of a perfectionistic, insecure, and ego-centric person that can’t afford to make any mistakes, or take any missteps.  This is the new idea that I want you to drill into your brain.  “Whatever happens, I can handle it… I can fix it… I can apologize for it and make it better… every experience will help me to become a little better socially and mentally.”   What do you think?  Doesn’t that perspective feel so much better?  Hear me out for one more sec… You cannot become a slave to awkwardness, and if you have yourself convinced that awkwardness is social death, then you’ll begin avoiding life, and situations, and you’ll stop taking risks, and as a result your life will become small, and you’ll be a prisoner of your fears.  Listen, you are an explorer, and you have to expand your world, instead of retreating into your shell like a tortoise.  

• Shift your mental gears.  Sometimes when something awkward happens, or we begin to feel awkward, we become a little obsessive or self-conscious… in our heads, right?.  In other words, we feel like we are under a microscope or under a spotlight.  Our brain turns in, onto itself, and we become hyper focused  on every thought, feeling, every look that someone gives us, every word they say, the tone in their voice… in other words, we become very raw and sensitive.  The best way to pull yourself out of this hyper focused state is to physically do something else.  Tony Robbins used to say “the quickest way to change your emotional state, is to physically do something.”  To that, I will add, turn your focus out.  I’ve shared with you that the quickest way for you to emotionally feel better, is to do something kind for someone else. 

So jump out from under that microscope and spotlight, and instead look to do something good for yourself and for someone else.

You can:

1. Send a nice text to a family member or friend (unless that’s too awkward for you)

2. Listen to your favorite playlist

3. Compliment someone (unless that’s just so cringe for you that you can’t bring yourself to d it… come on people, you gotta give me a chance to help you)

4. Smile at other people (remember that smiling is an act of courage)

5. Look for an opportunity to help someone

6. Show interest in another person… ask them a question about the school they go to, work they do, their hobbies or interests, their friends, or about their family.  Shift the focus, right?  

7. Laugh at yourself and the situation and move on to bigger and better things.  

8. Make yourself useful, and do something that matters to you or to someone else.  

9. Play a game

10. Call a friend, or family member

Whatever you do, practice it, and teach that brain of yours to not stay stuck on the negative events of your life, and instead, let’s focus on being the good, and bringing the good… I promise it will work, with a little patience.

 Alright, enough is enough, one of the main things that I want to convey to you is this.  Don’t let your negative experiences determine the rest of your experiences.  A good friend of mine that spent his life in the military used to tell me “iuri, you gotta learn to embrace the suck my friend,” similarly, you have to learn how to hold hands and embrace awkwardness and the awkward moments of your life, because honestly, you’re going to have plenty of those experiences, so when they happen, instead of being in complete shock, you can go… “oh yeah, this is totally expected, and I can handle it.”

Remember that sometimes awkward just means that you’ve left the comfort zone, and that you’ve now entered the growth zone.  There’s an African Proverb that says "Smooth seas do not make skilled sailors."  So just remember that sometimes to get to those really awesome relationships, you often have to sail through some awkward and rough waters… no stress, you got this.  Be cool, stay in school, and enjoy!

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