Awkward situations are what most people try to avoid at all costs, and seemingly for good reason: These situations feel threatening, embarrassing and somehow more intimate than we would like. Awkwardness is when we find ourselves in situations that overwhelm us emotionally, most often because their interpretation collides with the stories we have told ourselves. Awkward situations are at odds with the narratives we believe in without ever having questioned them for ourselves, narratives told and taught to us by our culture and our immediate social environment.
What is awkward to some may be totally easy to go through for someone else and so we see that it's never really the situation that is awkward but instead our thoughts about it.
So what do we do? How can we avoid awkward situations? I am daring to say we don't want to avoid them at all - we want to learn how to embrace them and ultimately seek them out.
Awkward situations can be a gloriously helpful signpost to show us where we can grow inside and where we can let go of old narratives that no longer serve us. They appear again and again in our lives as sort of a cosmic invitation to work through our hang-ups, to get over them and to withdraw all our emotional charge so that we may be at ease with them. Unphased.
If you think back to your early adolescence there might have been many situations you once found awkward that have become rather unemotional or even pleasant in recent years. Things seem awkward the first time we experience them - not knowing the ropes, wanting to not make any mistakes and to magically get it right without any prior experience.
The first sex is awkward for many people. So is the first live performance, the first time in silence with strangers in an elevator or the first time you have to call your uncle on the phone. But if we choose to not stop there we can easily see from experience just how much these situations have improved and ultimately enabled us to become better and more sure of what we are doing when we now find ourselves in these situations again.
Speaking English to strangers had been somewhat awkward during my high school year in the US at first, but eventually it became a lot of fun - mainly because my ego realized no harm ever came from it and I got better and better at it. Until now I am so easy talking to strangers in English that I feel absolutely grateful I plowed through the awkward times until it felt great.
And so, a rather radical but helpful attitude to take is to actively seek out awkward situations, in order to learn from them. To gather as many as possible. There is something like a weird sense of pleasure when we can manage to get hooked on the feeling of awkwardness - because we know by plunging ourselves into these situations we are actively working on eventually freeing ourselves from their grasp, whereas most people would never voluntarily partake and instead do anything to avoid these situations at all costs being reminded of the awkward times from their past.
Come on, really just how bad could it really be?
The question that can do wonders in helping us through the initial resistance when an awkward situation arises. Just how bad could it be? Another variation of the same idea is whatever happens, I will not die from it.
Sometimes the ego just needs a bit of support and reassurance that it's really just for its best to go through with it, to even enjoy it if at all possible.
What's the worst thing that can happen here? Really...
It will just take a moment and when the situation has passed without any of the fears the mind tries to infer beforehand you will feel a thousand times stronger - because you are. You chose to go through with it leaving your comfort zone, earning experience and gaining a deeper sense of self-esteem.
You deserve all the credit.
Now do it again! This is your chance!
Everyone is watching!
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