Conference Call Topic: Being Social

In today’s conference call, we dealt mainly with the emotional consequences and coping mechanism of daily living with a body odor condition. Some of the emotional responses frequently expressed by body odor sufferers are the following:

1. A strong sense of pessimism;

2. Develop a perception that others are attempting to take away our humanity, our sense of self-worth through social rejection, sometimes in a very hateful manner;

3. Our capacity to love people and to establish relationships is diminished to a certain degree;

4. Social powers decrease at work, school, friendships, and even with family members who are non-sufferers

5. Our awry social development may very well manifest itself while we attempt to establish relationships with each other in this community, however being more aware of the impact of our common social experiences with this condition we can help each other other grow to become better social beings in spite of our past experiences.

We can’t focus on everything that surrounds us in life, so we have to choose what we want to focus on...Recommended coping mechanism within the community and outside:

1. Improve communication skills in our community by seeking to become involved in as many social opportunities as possible. This may be participating in "multi-dimensional" communications involving hearing and seeing each others' voice tonality and body language, as opposed to our customary one-dimensional communication tool of posting in a forum. The most ideal situation would be to participate in meet-ups, the seconds best situation would be participating in conference calls, and of course, continue to participate in the forums.

2. Change our focus to what’s really going on with people around us as opposed to self-centeredness in which we become the focus of our attention. Realize that people may be talking, laughing, and thinking about their own issues as opposed to about us at any given moment in time.

3. Eye contact: When we feel shame, we tend to avoid eye contact, thus sending a message that, “I don’t want to connect with you.” We need to change our social approach to having eye contact in an inviting manner, so that others may see our humanity.

4. Think positively: Avoid thinking in negative terms:

a. Negative: I hope I don’t stink today.
b. Positive: Today I will be stress-free and I will smell good as a result.

5. Strive to be independent of needing praise: Change from being an insecure person to a more independent one; and acquiring an ‘I don’t care’ attitude regarding the odor while in a social setting.

6. Strive to be a group of selfless people – focusing less on our individual selves and more on the big picture of where we would like our community to take us – toward physical and emotional healing

7. We chose what to focus on: We can’t focus on everything that surrounds us in life at all times, so we have to choose what we want to focus on, either on the negative or the positive. Which will it be?