Latest / College Is Fine, Everything's Fine / #45 How to Bounce Back from Social Mistakes with Dr. Colleen Lang

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#45 How to Bounce Back from Social Mistakes with Dr. Colleen Lang · College Is Fine, Everything's Fine

. I'm Dr. Sarah Olivo and I'm Dr. Liz Seidler and you're listening to College is Fine. Everything's fine.Hi, Colleen! HaHiha haI'm excited for today. So Colleen, why don't you introduce yourself and then we can kind of let the listeners know why we were desperate to have you on.My name is Dr. Colleen Lang. I am a clinical psychologist and the, uh, director and, uh, founder of a group private practice in Manhattan in Brooklyn called Behavioral Wellness of NYC or Be Well NYC. where we specialize in cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy.Also known as the bestOh yeah.in theGreat style.Is that right? Is that right? I did not know that, but I'm taking itback and to your face. HaSo tune,you guystune into our social media. You'll see, um, so the stylish face of Dr. Colleen Lange. Um,Well, yeah, we'll give youright, right, right. Um, but we're not here for fashion guys. Um, and I was lucky to know Colleen. She was my supervisor ages ago. And when Sarah and I were talking about continuing to explore what we know, college students, struggle with the most is Navigating social relationships and dynamics on college campuses.We thought we'd go back. We haven't talked about it a while, Sarah. we did a social series when we first started the podcast. Um, and 1 of the things we got feedback is like, how do we kind of handle. When we make mistakes socially in college, and Colleen, I've seen you navigate making lots of mistakes.Very well.YouI don't know.back. That's why we had you.I don't know what to think of the fact that I've been asked to speak on this topic. Other than that, you both know, I know of it so well, personally andLived experience,All, all, all jokes aside, though, Colleen, you're, an expert in evidence based treatments. And Sarah and I have talked about what that means, which essentially means that she knows what she's talking about in terms of skills that you can use to manage some of the negative emotions that come up when we embarrass ourselves, make mistakes, and how to recover hopefully quickly so that we don't get stuck in a cycle where, you know, I think we all can get to sometimes where we're worrying about the consequences of something that we've done or said.So,Yeah, I also think that our earlier series talked a lot about social anxiety, where we're like, you know, it's all, it's like, a lot of that is just some thoughts you're having in your head, but I do think there are times where we do. mess up and there's a repair that needs to be made and it happens to the best of us.So, um, I think even if you did listen to those early episodes, I'm actually kind of listening here for myself. I'm still learning. I'm takinglet's, let's brainstorm. You know, I have some things that college students have shared that they either like desperately fear is, are going to happen when they're in school or it does happen to them and they really get stuck and feel like they can't recover from. And maybe we can share from our own clinical experience or personal experience.You're right. Um, This is definitely a personal one for me, and it happened with a client actually this week, was accidentally texting the wrong person something, or like a group text, and they shared or said something that was judgmental or unkind.Can you guys think of some other examples of some social mistakes that can kind of happen? Or that are feared?Oh, sure. I mean, I feel like there is such a range, right, between those sort of social faux pas that are embarrassing and that, you know, make us want to cringe, as I say, up to those where we may worry that they're not. We've actually offended someone and luckily most fall, I think in the former category, but you know, like tripping and falling on your way into a party or down a flight of stairs or calling somebody by the wrong name or like accidentally burping in the middle of a story.Um, when a joke doesn't land, uh, things that just bring up that like visceral kind of discomfort.Or even not even mistakenly texting the wrong group, but sometimes impulsively texting sort of when you're in that hot headed place. I've certainly learned some lessons about that where I'm like, Oh, okay, if I'd waited. Even 10 minutes. And then sometimes I'm like, I don't want to wait. I'm going to do it.Yeah. Yeah. I, I do fall prey to it, but I think some of those impulsive behaviors can get usYeah. It seems like where you, it's both like, I wish I would have handled things differently and maybe there were some consequences to how I handled it, but then also this, um, sometimes exaggerated belief about consequences that maybe are not as big of a deal in reality. Like, for example, like, I feel like I shared too much about myself.I don't know that person too well yet. We just met in this class. And maybe we're making predictions that are not necessarily accurate.Yeah. What are some common predictions you see when people do make these kind of small cringy, cringeworthy mistakes all the way up to like, oops, I might've ruined a relationship. Like, what are, what about the, let's start with the small cringy stuff where it's like, we've all done it. It will happen again. what are some of the thoughts that you see pop up?So, I mean, I think that, you know, there's a lot of like what we might call post mortem kind of cognitive things that happen, which is sort of like after the fact when you've gotten home from the party or the next morning where you start spinning on it and ruminating on it. And, The catastrophe that is kind of like associated with that feeling of shame or embarrassment feels like it's, you know, so touchable, um, where it can make us feel like we, I mean the word cringe, right?Like we want to like crawl in ourselves or like ruminate or self flagellate or try to think our way out of it or seek reassurance. So you see a lot of that come up. Um, which I would say, regardless of whether or not a sort of social faux where it falls on the spectrum. Of bringing up justified or unjustified kind of shame.Those processes are not helpful. Um, so oftentimesI keep on thinking, like, if we hadyeah, can I do it?But I'm definitely guilty of that. You know, a long time ago peopleOh, yeah.I didn't know the difference really between social anxiety and then that kind of post mortem social rumination or I like to think I'm just like swimming around in the memories, you know,Uh huh.I I was sometimes confused because people would be like, you don't have social anxiety.I'm like, you're right. I enjoy and go into experiences with a sense of excitement, you know, for the most part, um, public speaking, notwithstanding. Um, but then the next day is when I tend to go back and, and like give myself a grade or several grades, depending, you know, so I certainly can know how that feels, um, to go back and do that postmortem.And you're right. It just feels like. I mean, before I sort of knew what was happening, I could sit there for hours, all day, go back,Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah Well, it's totally like reinforcing right like I a lot of times it's also the reassurance seeking right? Calling all the people, you know, to sort of see how much they hate you or to check in on whether or not they projected you. And I think that, you know, like ruminating and reassurance seeking, it might give us a sense of relief, uh, or control in those moments that then, of course, accidentally rewards the high anxiety and shame in the first place.Um. And gets in the way of probably feeling real feelings that we need to sit with.I, I talk to a lot of students, um, who will say their version of like reassurance seeking is they'll go and they'll text their friends what they did and get their friends. Okay. Or not. Okay. And then they can feel better yet. They do that. And they're still talking to me about it a week later. So I'd be curious to see what you would say to somebody who does that kind of checking in with others to grade themselves.How long does thatWell, first of all, if they're checking in with you a week later, it means that it didn't work when they were doing it sort of like immediately post mortem. Although we, yeah, like you said, we all totally understand that urge. I mean, I would say the first step honestly is to recognizing that those behaviors don't work as much as we might have an urge to do them.And in fact, they tend to kick up a lot more dirt. And end up making us sit in it for longer and without being effective. Um, I mean, and I think that a better response sort of depends, of course, on how justified or unjustified the shame is, because shame is a feeling, makes us feel like it's all a crisis.Right. Um, and the reality is, is, as you know, probably from an episode that you just did on justified versus unjustified shame, the, the response is going to look a little bit different depending. And, and luckily. justified shame, though obviously real and important, I think tends to be More rare than like statistically more, our mistakes more often than not fall into the sort of causing unjustified shame range.But, um, rather than sit and stew and ruminate, if, if the shame is justified and a mistake has been made, that's been more grave, right? Such as like really offending someone or really engaging in shameful behavior, then we have to problem solve, which might mean repairing, seeking forgiveness. Yes. And if we can't repair or seek forgiveness or regardless, certainly like looking at our behavior, learning and adjusting, moving forward and having to accept consequences with grace.I think it's different when the emotions are more unjustified as in there's like a social faux pas that's made but there's not a good chance that that group is going to reject you or you know that you're going to be excluded from the in crowd or whatever it might be or lose people's regard who you value.And for that, I think like, after you recognize that those processes don't work, we could talk about what does it mean to like. Own it instead.Yeah. Put your energy where it actually can be helpful.Exactly.say that I love, like, so you've already laid out the map of, if you can get to a place to identify if your shame is unjustified or justified, what are your action steps? But even before that, because you were talking about this earlier, what are some of your thoughts on tips too?Because I think a hurdle to even get there is. Is this ruminative process? people just kind of get stuck in thinking about what happened. It's not really helpful, , what could college students do if they really are finding themselves replaying the events over and over and over again, usually with intense judgment and fear about consequences?Uh, other than just stop. Um, that would be the first one. No, I think that where it's where it's unjustified, right? Um, I think that it could be really helpful to remember that these mistakes we make, like, honestly, even if I walked into a party and I fell and like rolled, right? That would be humiliating.Humiliating. And I think it's helpful to remember two things. Number one, the people who saw that are not generally thinking about it the same way that we think about it. We see other people's faux pas and if anything, we notice it, but it's pretty transient. And we are, like, relieved that it's not us, right?But we certainly aren't harping on it the way that the person who actually engaged in it is. So that's always helpful to remember, I think, that these things pass. But then also, for, for that branch of more unjustified mistakes, sometimes it can be helpful to remember that when the moment of high distress passes, there may actually be a moment you can imagine when you'll laugh about it.I mean, not always, don't get me wrong. Definitely not always, but, but a lot of times, and certainly if you can't laugh about it, that you can imagine a moment where all of your relationships are still going on as is, and sometimes even stronger, like despite this sort of bump in the road,Yeah. I, some, I think it's helpful occasionally to think about times you've not noticed a friend's kind of social gaffe or kind of been like, what, I didn't even notice that, or that you did, but it's, it's a week later, a month later, and it's, it's not at the top of mind. I do think we have, have such the, um, that sort of. What do you call it, ace up the sleeve, where it's like people just truly aren't, they have so many other things going on that just the likelihood that this is the focus of all their energy and attention is, is really small. Um, they're probably much more focused on something in their own sort of, and, you know, kind of target area of worries, um, that tends to be them themselves, what they've done wrong or right, um, what they have to do.ButAnd to summarize that, would you say, Colleen, it's like, recognizing that humans tend to overestimate the probability that people are actually noticing are paying attention to aspects of our experience. Um, and then, of course, we're bias. We're biased to thinking that it's. really negative well, it's also like worth remembering that, you know, we tend to be so much more accepting and understanding of the fact that other people are fallible than we are of understanding and accepting ourselves to be fallible. So like we get a great level of forgiveness usually from other people more than we give it.The other thing I would say is like that I find enormously helpful. Is that there's a difference between seeking reassurance where you're sort of like, Oh my God, this is what I did last night. Right. Where you're looking for people to tell you it's okay. And on the other hand, owning it right in a more sort of mindful accepting way where you can just sort of stand up to it and state what you did in fact form.Without judgment. Sort of like I tripped and fell when I walked in last night, or in a more severe case of like, I sent a text message that wasn't mindful and that I can clearly see you might've offended people. And, and in that case, of course, to apologize. I mean, I think there's like a way of, of stepping up to these things as uncomfortable, as crazy, uncomfortable as it is, that's really important because it's better to feel it than it is to try to like crawl our way out of it and all these really ineffective ways.yeah, the way you described it like that, it's almost like both are hard. It's just that one sort of prolongs it. It's like a prolonged self torture as to the one where you're just like, this is, I need to just kind of swallow the medicine, get it done, and get past it so I can grow or move on or whatever I need to do.Right.You mentioned humor. And it actually made me think about, um, I guess something that only sort of time can show people. I always think about time as just this, occasionally this gift that you have to wait certain things out to make sure that they come true. You won't know right away whether or not, um, a social gaffe is going to, you know, we, we certainly wouldn't go in and be like, it'll definitely be okay.Everyone's going to forgive you, right? You have to tolerate some uncertainty about what's going to happen next. But something I've noticed is the one. The friends who've stuck around, who I am still friends with, um, again, I do have, I've experienced a lot of grace, as I'm sure we all have in our friendships, um,I certainly, I have definitely.for, for sure.But the ones who sort of know me at my most fallible are the people I'm closest to. Right, the ones who, and, and actually I think part of that is because I was fallible and they were fallible and we got over it or we laughed about it. Like I think there's in a weird way some bonding that can happen when we all kind of get past those hurdles.I don't know that I get close to people who've never been vulnerable with me or made a mistake. I'd be curious what your thoughts are on that.Yeah. I mean, I think that that that kind of vulnerability right of being open and accepting and even to some extent being confident about our fallibility breeds that it's like there's a contagion of it, right? It's like, then we get the acceptance and then we give the acceptance. I mean, and I, I, I would like to call it some kind of like, uh, you know, like, Uh, confident self deprecation or something where you are helping other people to also feel comfortable.It's like disarming to sort of humbly own your fallibility and to do it confidently as if you're not a shameful person as a result of that.Yeah.And yeah, it feeds, it feeds onIt reminds me of, you know, I know I've talked about this before, but I'm convinced that everything I work with my clients on. They now just learn on Tik TOK. Um, you know, they'll come back. They're like, Oh, like, Oh, they'll text me. And I'm like, Liz,We don't need these degrees anymore.No,I'm sure this come and it might even be a thing.But when my clients was talking about, they're like, do you know what the spotlight effect is? And I was like, I don't know. A lot of psychological things have a lot of different names, but they were essentially talking about, which I think is this. egocentric bias that we have that we think the spotlight is.Oh,But well, it used to be commonly known to happen during adolescent development. TheSo look, see, this is why Colleen's on guys. I'm like thinking it's a tick tock trend, but anyway, so the reason why the client was telling me this was like, was saying that, and they have a lot of anxiety about saying the wrong thing with friends in college and they had just joined a frat. and feel like an outsider.Um, and he was saying to me, like, whenever he says something that he feels like is socially kind of a little bit off and he, and he, and I do think he's accurately reading, like, even when he tells me some of these things, I'm like, He'll just be like, yikes, or he'll be like, ouch. He'll like make these comments that are like, so, just actually, and he, what he was describing to me is , I'm going to put the spotlight on me on purpose.And acknowledge, , that I've made a social mistake as opposed to worrying that the spotlight was on me. It's like, I'm in control of the spotlight. Right.PreemptingAnd I think that is. You know, going back to when you were talking about earlier about like, what action steps can we take, whether it's using humor or just calling out the elephant that may be in the room or not.And even when he's unsure when he does it, he's like, I get like a good response from people. They're either like, yeah, that was stupid. Why'd you say that? Or they just laugh at him. It changes the mood in the room. And then, you know, he goes on without, you know, through the rest of his day. Yeah. They, but I think that's, uh, certainly sort of like acting our way into acceptance, but also modeling it for other people. I do want to say, I want to make sure that I say that I think that can be hard to do in the moment, right? We were talking about this like post mortem sort of owning it. I think you're talking about in the moment owning it, which could be really powerful.And I just want to say. That becomes easier. Actually, the more often you commit social faux pas, which gives us good rationale for sometimes when the tolerance of social faux pas is really low, actually increasing that tolerance through committing social mistakes. On purpose, right? Because that will not only increase our tolerance, but will also cue us to be able to cope effectively, such as what you just described, Liz, which is kind of beautiful, right?And I think I actually think that it could be great to do that, to own it, to put the spotlight on it. It's a different version of spotlight, by the way, than the one I thought you were talking about, but we don't have to get into that. And that was more about self consciousness. Um, And I also find it helpful, like after we make a social mistake, even though our urges might be like, let me just spend all my time in this moment thinking about how bad that was and try to recover an accurate way of recovering can be using humor, acting your way back into that acceptance.And then. Using like give skills, right? Like I find we want to think about ourselves and all our anxiety in that moment, people like people who seem to like them. So we use these, what we call give skills, right? Which is be gentle, act, interested, validate people and use an easy manner. So once we've committed a social mistake, we have to remember we have far more social graces actually as humans than we do make mistakes.And so we could kind of get back, grease the wheels again by like focusing on other people and using curiosity about them. And, you know, just kind of making more genuine human connections that go beyond these moments.Yeah, it's almost like changing the script a little bit of, you know, like that narrative you have in your head where you're like, Oh, I've made a mistake. Now the script gets to be like, this is going to be an opportunity for me to show someone else some humor, give something to them and recover. I do like the idea of acting before you're feeling it.I mean, we talk about that a lot. And I think that this idea of being able to practice some of this in low stakes situations. Is, is a good one, um, because yeah, over time it gets easier, but we don't all have, you know, like decades, decades of experience like we do to, to practice it. So what are some examples of ways you might have somebody practice making a kind of a low stakes social gaffe so that they can practice either their humor or their, you know, kind of fullyRight. Oh, it's so fun. This could be so fun, right? Um, I mean, it kind of depends on, um, and I don't think we have to get into the nitty gritty on this, but I think it sort of depends on, we, like, we all have different fears that our social mistakes kind of activate, right? For some people, it's like, everybody's going to think I'm stupid, or for other people, it's going to be everybody thinks I'm really bad, or, um, so you would want to choose, like, behaviors that sort of Like play into those fears a little bit, not that they reinforce them.Right. But, um, so if it's something like everybody's just going to think I'm foolish or awkward, then I might tell somebody, um, if there's a moment of silence at this dinner party, I want you to engage in like really loud consecutive sneezing and, and then engage those skills of like, wow, that was awkward.Sorry. Um, or intentionally call somebody by the wrong name. Or trip and fall when you walk into the room, honestly, like that's a big high level one and like, don't hurt yourself. But, um, it would sort of, they, and you could get really creative with people and it tends to be really fun.Yeah. Well, I've actually worked, especially if, um, if I'm working with people who, who do struggle with social anxiety. I mean, I think if we all do cognitive behavioral therapy with kids or teens or young adults who are anxious, right? We have exposed ourselves to all kinds of social gas cause you're out there in the world with, with your client, maybe doing and modeling some silly mistakes, you know?And so, but I've had people go out before and say, let's take a, let's take a, let's Like a survey. Okay, and I'll start. I'm gonna go up and ask people some obvious questions. And I want you to tell me what their response is. And they would say, okay, I'm gonna guess that, you know, one or two might be nice and friendly about it, but the rest are gonna roll their eyes or laugh or be really rude.And we'll go down the street. And this is Manhattan, right? This is not, You know, um, some sort of like mom and pop farm town where the middle of the street in Manhattan and inevitably 100 percent of the people are kind, or they'll kind of laugh with me. They'll be like,That is amazing.Yeah. And so it's a really, and so II want that list of questions, Sarah.yes. Well, listen, I mean, again, I was taking from my own experience about times where I've maybe not noticed the obvious, like record store that was right behind me. Um, I got a record player for Christmas. So I've been looking at record stores. Um, so, um, Anyway, so I'm like, that wasn't from the eighties.That literally was something I'm doing in a modern day times. So, yeah, I think that, um, and so that's been interesting for me when I started to do the like actual data gathering, I was surprised I was like, Oh man, 10 out of 10, I was hoping for maybe eight out of 10. Yeah.to present to back thisyou gather your own data.Um, guys, I'm mindful of time. Could I summarize a little bit of some stuff you said, Colleen, I really love the idea of giving people steps and ideas of kind of what they can take away from what we've talked about today. So. And then you guys tell me what I did wrong here, but I think the first step is to accept that it's happened.I think a lot of us are like, Oh my gosh, like I can't even like, there's non acceptance of that. It didn't even happen. So like once you've accepted it, it seems like the next step is to really think about it. Okay. This idea is it justified or unjustified in terms of the intensity of my emotional reaction?Because it seems like how you're going to handle that in terms of your actions, like the intensity is going to differ, right? Like I imagine if I'm able to quickly say, I'm making this about me. I'm probably overestimating the likelihood that, you know, anyone noticed that I called Julia Sarah, right? I might just do nothing.But if I said something that was really mean spirited and hurtful and I care about the relationship, I might give a more sincere, heartfelt apology. , and then in between that, maybe you make a brief light apology if it really wasn't, um, That justified in terms of the shame or quickly explain yourself.You know, I get it carried away and I talk too much sometimes when I'm really enthusiastic about something. Sorry, I didn't give you space to talk or something. Am I missing anything? What are some other takeaways that you think would be helpful for people to think about?Well, I just wanted to say that I think that you were actually hitting on something we didn't get totally into, which is like, this is, well, we did, but we didn't. The importance of checking the facts is because like, There's a spectrum of response that you might have, right? There's like the big apology, the little apology, right?And then there's the no apology. So that was important, Liz. Um, and I think for those, I think we were kind of talking more about. There is the repairing we have to do right when it's justified and when it's unjustified. We talked a little bit about how to reframe those moments to remember that they're not catastrophic, that we're overestimating the probability of people seeing, noticing, thinking, reacting, and also the painful, difficult work of kind of like mindful, emotional, experiencing it and owning it and using humor to present it with this sort of confident self deprecation.Yeah, I also think about that last level of if it is justified, let's say you go out and you're at a party and you drink way too much and you engage in behaviors X, Y, and Z that you wish you hadn't because you, the alcohol had taken over, right? And then so you go and you yell at somebody or, you know, whatever.And so the next day, You're thinking, Oh gosh, or at some point you get to a place and you do make that apology. I think the next part is to say, all right, so now I want to switch some actions. And the next party I go to, I, I won't engage in that same behavior again. People also have their memories tends to rely on like the more recent thing, right?So I think having those actions where you can say, okay, I, this is a chance for a redo, put that aside. It's something to kind of, you know, think about, okay, if it's something where I've done the apology, I also have, I have an action that I can take that would be a bit of a redo for me and this relationship or this situation.Um, and in the meantime, give yourself a lot of self compassion,I love that. I mean, yeah, it's like we can, we can redeem ourselves by getting back to what our values are while also having self compassion because we are fallible.mean, celebrities do it all the time, right?Yes.Yeah. Yeah. And, and they're justso much in the public eye and then like, you know, we forget about these things, but they'reYeah. I mean,Right.forever. You're, you know, such a wealth of information, but I hope, you know, my fear always, whenever this happens with any students that I'm working with is that they're going to like be holed up in their dorm room, out of fear that they're going to make a mistake or they're not going to raise their hand in class. That things seem a little bit less dangerous, from our conversation today and you know, more strategies, I think, than you realize in terms of how to recover fromYeah, there's much more room in our relationships for redemption.And much more that we probably could be proud of than ashamed of when we add upYes, exactly. Absolutely. Exactly.All right, Colleen.So I will be thinking about all of my faux pas that I, uh, performed here in this 30 minutes after, and I'm going to be using those strategies. I'm just going to own them to the two of you afterwards. You'll let me know if we need to redo.We barely edit anymore because we'reAnd Colleen, Colleen and her practice are amazing. And they're in New York City. We will share resources linked, uh, if you want to find out more about Colleen and her practice in our show notes. I will figure out what spotlight effect I was talking about. Also share that in the show notes. Um,Or which one I, maybe I was wrong. Who knows? It was awesome to see you guys. ItThanks so much.Thank you to our guests for sharing their stories and their advice. This podcast is for college students and we want input by college students, so please reach out by text, email, or voice memo to CollegesFindPodcast at gmail. com or 929 500 2231. Tell us your story, give us tips on topics you'd like to hear, or give us feedback about an episode.Follow us on Instagram at colleges find podcasts for episode announcements and resources. And last but not least, if you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to the podcast. 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