Why Did I Do All This?

We call it Social Anxiety, but labels don’t do justice to the actual feeling of panic that people feel when social situations get too intense. The two are separate and compartmentalised. The second aspect of the Wildman that you need to develop is his pureness and spontaneity. If you’re anything like me, then you have the relationship with the Magician archetype and are a thinker, planner, and strategist. Being spontaneous and letting go does not come easily to you. The reality for people like us is that we find it very difficult to be spontaneous since it requires that you stop thinking entirely. Telling people like us to stop thinking is like telling a hammer to stop hammering or a drill to stop drilling. Thinking is what we do. If that is you, then just know that this is your Magician speaking. We need to get you back in touch with your Wildman. Were you such a big thinker when you were a kid, or did you play spontaneously without worry for the future? Your Wildman has been stripped from you, whether by your parents, society, or something else. Ironically, the best way to become more spontaneous in any given area is to prepare beforehand.

Out Of Touch

Before you can be spontaneous in a new language, you need to have memorised vocabulary and grammar rules. To be spontaneous at dancing, you need to have practised and mastered enough moves. Yes, animals are 100% spontaneous, but they are still operating from instinctual behaviour blueprints. We’re all fearless performers singing secretly in the shower. So let’s talk about fear. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me danger is very real, but fear is a choice.40 The domain of the Wildman is in the present moment. In the present moment we don’t experience fear. To escape fear, we need to bring our attention to the here and now.

This Bird Has Flown

We need to realise that our fear is a product of whatever it is we are imagining. How do we bring our attention to the here and now? How do we stop our mind spinning, projecting worst possible outcomes before our eyes? The key is in our bodies. There is nothing more present, nothing more in this very moment, than the physical sensation of the body. When I saw a woman I wanted to approach, I would rub my thumbs and fingers together. I’d take a few deep breaths, bringing all of my attention to the sensation of the air travelling into my lungs, then back out again. I’d swing my arms back, bring them together and clap my hands together. I’d give a little skip as I started jogging in her direction. Why did I do all this? I had learned that whenever I went over without any physical preparation, I brought worries and anxieties with me into the interaction. By giving myself a few seconds to focus my attention away from my mind and into my body, my mind would slow and my awareness would spread out from the scattered thoughts of the mind to the expansive intelligence of my body. No plan, no strategy, just be. Just me and the Wildman. The more you combine sensory experience with emotions or mindsets, the more connected they become.

Take Me Back

What happens when you listen to the soundtrack to your favourite cartoon that you grew up to? You get a quick flash of emotion don’t you? You can use this natural brain function to your advantage by programming your own anchors to support access to your archetypes. My favourite kind of training I like to do with my clients is when I take them out onto the streets of a busy capital city like London or New York, and make them approach beautiful women all day. Sure, I love doing skype coaching and teaching lots of men at once in a workshop or conference style environment, but nothing quite beats taking a guy out and training him live. I remember teaching one guy in New York who probably had the worst social anxiety I’d ever seen. It was no surprise when he found it increasingly difficult with every attempt to start a conversation with a woman. After just an hour of starting light, friendly conversations that all ended fairly quickly, he looked close to breaking point. Here was a man that had spent his entire life in the safety of his Magician archetype, trying to think his way through life’s problems and challenges, all at a safe distance. When interacting with strangers on the intense, busy streets of Soho in New York, your mind cannot keep up. Anyone who is strong with their Magician knows that you can’t think your way through an intense social situation. Conversation is too fast, too dynamic and too high pressured. The pressure of doing it right and being able to develop the skill we were teaching was too intense for this guy, mainly because the environment was just so overpowering for him. I’m sure he would have much preferred the safety and control of a workshop environment with hired women to practice on but, for him, this was like learning to fight in a live war zone. His primary barrier was fear. He was afraid of people looking at him, judging him, noticing him, and ultimately rejecting him. Other guys would put a different face to their fear, but at the end of the day, fear is fear. You can’t overcome fear by avoiding it. Normally, guys get over this fear with enough approaches, but for guys like this, their fear goes much deeper, and often needs a more creative approach. The feeling is like being crushed by the personalities of everyone around you to the point where you feel like you’re going to pass out.