The Calm Confidence Podcast How To Stop Replaying Social Interactions
Dec 23, 2025
Explore the common struggle of replaying social interactions and its link to social anxiety. Learn how to recognize rumination as an obsession and create mindful separation from your thoughts. Challenge biased memories and build self-compassion instead of self-criticism. Discover the power of treating social mistakes as learning opportunities. Embrace uncertainty and reinforce positive habits through practice, allowing yourself to move on and live fully.
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Ruminating Is An Unhelpful Obsession
- Replaying social interactions is an obsession that keeps you stuck and feels necessary but is unhelpful.
- Charles Perry says noticing it as rumination lets you separate yourself from the thought and reduces its power.
Create Distance With Noticing
- Create distance by noticing the act of thinking and reminding yourself you may be misremembering events.
- Say to yourself, "I notice I'm thinking about that embarrassing thing," to separate thought from identity.
Stop Digging For Certainty
- Challenge the belief that your interpretation equals fact and accept uncertainty instead of digging for answers.
- Practice telling yourself, "I don't know if that person likes me," and sit with the discomfort.