How do you overcome social anxiety without medication?

I was once the most socially awkward person . Used to avoid going out with friends, same deal etc.

I never took any medication for it. What I did was I got a job in retail as a sales associate. I had to interact with people everyday people as part of the job.

What I learned was this: everyone has some amount of social anxiety. They just deal with it differently. Some over-compensate and act out and speak loud to create an artificial air of confidence, others wear mohawks and try to be "different," others just try to blend in and do as their peers do.

In the end, since everyone has fears like me, I had no right feeling inadequate about it. You will learn that everyone even the extroverts are awkward at times.

You need to become comfortable with who you are naturally!!! don’t second guess yourself and don’t buy into the social norms, because most of those people are stretching themselves to fit in anyways!

Poetic D is so right!
The key to becoming more socially comfortable comes in two parts.
1. Pretend. If you pretend to be comfortable and confident for long enough, it becomes habit. I know this by experience.
2. Hang out with the right kind of people. If you are blunt, don’t hang with sensitive people. And vice versa. If you like craft, join a craft group. If you like sport, join a sport group. If you like to read, join a book club. If you want to put into the community, do volunteer work. Be a scout leader, help out in the feast kitchen at an SCA event (http://www.sca.org). That’s particularly good as you only have to talk to the other people in the kitchen, and you are immediately dubbed a "useful person." Join a political party and hand out leaflets, volunteer with a refugee settlement organization…

Being unemployed is rotten for your self esteem. A job, any job, will make you feel better in about a week.

Everyone so interested in "getting over", getting around, getting beyond, etc. Ever think that maybe, just maybe there’s a jewel hidden inside this "problem"? Change your perspective and you’ll change your life.

Let’s call this tension, rather than anxiety. Tension can be in our mind (thoughts), in our body (tightness), or in our spirit (uneasiness). Our tension can come about because we really, really care about what they think of us, about how we look, about how they feel about us, or about how we feel about ourselves.

Everyone goes through this early on in their lives. It gets easier with practice. Caring too much is not wrong, but it keeps us from our life practice, or practice with life.

After all, there’s really only one way to learn to ride a horse….get on the horse. Sure you may fall off, you may look silly, you may get embarrassed, or you may learn to ride. Life is not a success-only journey. The silly and embarrassing moments in life makes the journey even sweeter. This is your life…don’t be afraid. Saddle up your little pony and ride.

Cheers,

Monk