{"id":1365,"date":"2020-05-27T16:26:32","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T16:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/?p=1365"},"modified":"2020-05-27T16:31:58","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T16:31:58","slug":"how-to-find-support-among-strangers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/?p=1365","title":{"rendered":"How to find support among strangers?"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><strong>Why am I stressed out when talking to strangers?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How do I overcome the fear of talking to strangers?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I feel nervous and anxious when I find myself exposed to strangers. Why can&#8217;t I go out alone?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why do I get anxious when I am in a new place, may be a coffee shop, a function, a new school or any other new environment?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We tend to think that friends, romantic partners, and family members are our biggest sources of connection,&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">laughter<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and warmth. While that may well be true,&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">researchers<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;have also recently found that interacting with &#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">weak ties<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;- people that we&nbsp;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">don&#8217;t&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">know very well actually brings a boost in mood and feelings of belonging that we didn&#8217;t expect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In one series of&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">studies<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, researchers instructed Chicago-area commuters using public transportation to strike up a conversation with someone near them on their respective buses or trains. On average, participants who followed this instruction felt better than those who had been told to stand or sit in silence. The researchers also argued that when we<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">shy<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;away from casual interactions with strangers, it is often due to a misplaced&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">anxiety<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;that they might not want to talk to&nbsp;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">us<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Much of the time, however, this belief is false. As it turns out, many people are actually perfectly willing to talk and may even be flattered to receive your&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">attention<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Surprisingly, the emotional benefits of connecting with strangers holds even for&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">introverts<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. So, put down the newspaper and smile at a stranger. Strike up a conversation with your seatmate. Commiserate with a classmate. You never know what you might learn. Chances are, you&#8217;re overestimating the potential awkwardness and dismissing the potential feelings of&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">happiness<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;and connection these small encounters will provide. As William Butler Yeats said, &#8220;There are no strangers here, only friends you haven&#8217;t yet met.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reference: Jaime L. Kurtz Ph.D.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder. \u201cMistakenly Seeking Solitude.\u201d Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143 (2014): 1980-1999.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gillian M. Sandstrom and&nbsp;Elizabeth W. Dunn. \u201cSocial Interactions and Well-Being: The Surprising Power of Weak Ties.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Personality<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;and Social Psychology Bulletin 40 (2014): 910-922.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why do I get anxious when I am in a new place, may be a coffee shop, a function, a new school or any other new environment?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14,16],"class_list":["post-1365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-counseling-resource","tag-clinic","tag-cognitive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1365"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1371,"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions\/1371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fhcscounseling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}