There is an extraordinary journey being offered to you, an invitation down a quieter, less-traveled, yet all the more scenic path.

It's the journey into your own authenticity, but to get there requires the courage to cross through more treacherous terrain: the crags of fear and the bogs of doubt.

At points along the way you'll reach clearings that will stop your breath with their beauty, their aliveness.  You may not believe it to be a real place, but after time you'll realize that it's true and it's there, a place inside yourself where a distant voice whispers to you that you are enough, where the rain calms your soul and the sun warms you through - all this at once.  In those places you begin to learn how to not only coexist with fear, but how to thrive in its presence and how to nurture the part of yourself that can stand up in your truth to comfort that fear.

The journey is an inward pilgrimage, and it begins by releasing our unhealthy attachments.

We slowly start to turn down the volume on other people's influence on our thoughts and actions;

we create more quiet

and more stillness for our authentic self to step in and guide us.

And then, finally, we learn what it means to experiment with no longer playing the roles we conjure for ourselves:

parent,

or child,

or sibling,

or spouse,

or boss,

or employee.

And it's in that beautiful, foreign space of contentment that we begin to know our authentic selves for the first time.  It's there that we meet Grace.  From that place, we find compassion enough to calm our fear, to trust our authentic self, and to hope and believe in the very best.

But it starts with letting go of the role, letting go of the search for validation to be found by being something else for everyone else.

It starts with choosing the stranger: yourself.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash (blog)

 Somewhere on the journey of learning to live fully as someone with social anxiety, there's a new hurdle: learning to keep up emotionally with the newly active social part of yourself.  As you grow more comfortable in the situations that previously provoked fear or avoidance a surprising thing can happen: you can find yourself becoming more social, more outgoing than your emotional self is prepared for.  This is especially true of socially anxious folks who lean toward the introverted end of the spectrum.  Suddenly there's a new, rather bombastic voice in the mix that wants to go on all those fabulous adventures the fearful self had been so good at talking you out of.  And before you know it, you're burned out with trying to keep up with this newly-freed sense of creative living. 

As I started driving again - contentedly, for the first time in my life - I found myself at a stopping point at my therapist's office, the farthest I'd yet driven.  I didn't have an appointment, or any commitments; it was just for practice.  Yet, as I sat in the parking lot, exuberant at the achievement and my comfort level with it, my adrenaline started to kick in, and I found myself antsy to go to the next destination - whatever whim might make it to be.  I asked myself: can I just rest in this space for a minute?  The answer, frankly, proved to be no.  I couldn't.

Sometimes rest doesn't happen on command, and sometimes the treasured tools become obsolete.  The affirmations are simply words once again, the resonance of your truth is frail, and your experience is imperfectly uncomfortable.  But the achievement in that moment is that you can sit amid rising anxiety and just observe it.  In moments like these it's frustrating, truly, because this big life outside of the comfort zone isn't as flawless or peaceful as you'd hoped.  The illusion of living without anxiety fizzles into the reality of living with anxiety.  But there's the living, and that's cause for a celebration even if it doesn't feel as comfortable as you expected.

There's a place between rest and action.  I call it allowing.  In our best-is-better world it's hard to be content with something so mediocre as acceptance, but mediocrity is the result of comparison, and comparison is, as they say, the thief of joy; comparison is an act of aggression against presence.

Can you make a home for yourself in acceptance, in allowing yourself to be valiantly imperfect?  Can you stop comparing your experience with what could have been, even just for a moment?  And can you finally, amid the noise and even the sorrow of this flawed place, give yourself permission to rest in the knowledge that this, too, is an achievement?  That this, too, is a manifestation of peace?  As the luminous Sue Monk Kidd once said, "Just to be is holy, and just to live is a gift."

In my work with my therapist and my personal self-care practice I most often refer to my anxious self as my “inner child.” The reasoning stems from my experiences growing up and the moments when I felt scared and powerless, which ultimately shaped the way anxiety would manifest within me as an adult.  In an Instagram post earlier in the year I elaborated on my fearful younger self and the compassion I’ve developed for her.

《 d e a r * y o u n g e r * s e l f 》 You. Are. Enough. * * * #aprillove2016 I keep this photo out, which I believe was taken the year my grade school teacher used a sort of public shaming tactic on me and subsequently set me up for a lifetime of worry. Worry that I wasn't - and never would be - smart enough to do things right, that my innocent mistakes would always be met with anger and ridicule from others, with embarrassment and shame from myself. That I was somehow less valuable than everyone else for my mistakes. I keep the photo out as a reminder that the scared little girl still lives in me, in my fears of failure and lack; hers is the voice that fuels my anxiety. And she reminds me that my anxiety is not something to be fought with aggression, but a part of myself that I must find the strength to comfort, to love, and to teach. x

See this Instagram photo by @caseemarie * 32 likes

Looking at anxiety in this way, as something to comfort and nurture into calmness and confident action, has been one of the most significant cornerstones of my journey. Because anxiety no longer becomes a bully or an enemy I need to beat; my life no longer feels like a battle, but a journey down an awkwardly bumpy and sometimes innocently treacherous road. Anxiety is no longer the villain tormenting me into submission, but a scared childhood me hiding in her closet and longing for someone to tell her she’s alright, she’s enough. I’ve been charged with keeping her safe and growing her confidence; in many ways, I am the mother of this inner child, and it’s my responsibility to encourage her out of hiding and into the world.

I remember once reading an article about making friends with anxiety and it seemed like the farthest-fetched idea I’d ever heard. Yet now, a few years and experiences and insights down the road, it makes all the sense in the world to me. Anxiety isn’t the thing hammering us into seclusion – that’s the reaction to the anxiety. Instead, anxiety is the shoulder a little bird sits on when it compassionately tells us to drop the storyline.

Adopting this perspective has been one of my greatest challenges, yet the result has been one of my greatest sources of strength. To become compassionate toward your anxious self is to become compassionate toward your imperfect self, and that’s the basis of a truly workable relationship between mind, body, and soul.

I have a habit – and I know I’m not alone in this – of looking for validation from others. Whether I’m writing an e-mail or weighing a big life decision, I’ve always felt the need to ask, “Does this sound okay?” or “Do you think that’s a good idea?” I always knew it was an insecurity, but I never considered that it was anything more than a quirk; certainly not a harmful one. But despite how common the insecurity is, I’ve realized that it can be harmful, because the more we feed it, the more it grows. And the more it grows, the louder it gets. And the louder it gets, the quicker we are to let the fear run our lives. Sooner or later insecurity owns us, and it doesn’t know what else to do but be insecure.

The search for validation, as I’ve come to know it, is the offspring of insecurity. But it’s not just about the need to be accepted: it’s the belief that we are unable to validate ourselves. When the weight of that realization fully hit me I thought: You, self, need to give yourself permission. You need to give yourself permission to see, to discover, to hold, to understand, to be okay. You need to give yourself permission to be your own validation. You also need to give yourself permission to make mistakes, to fail and to look foolish. Because it is going to happen. Most likely – and with your track record, let’s be honest – you are going to fail at some things and you will feel embarrassment and shame and regret. And that’s okay. Give yourself permission to know – to trust – that it’s okay. Maybe even, if you can, strive to give yourself permission to accept that those mistakes and failures are wonderful, because when the dream-house you’re trying to build crumbles all around you you’ll be able to stand on the ruins and reach higher, and you’ll learn things, and eventually you’ll be in the right place with the right tools and all four walls will stand. But you have to give yourself permission to get started so you can finally stop toeing the dirt and you can finally look up, and see, and estimate, and hope, and try.

Of course, if it took just telling myself that speech only once, I’d be a lot farther in my life than I am (wouldn’t we all?). It’s like everything else: it’s a practice. It’s a process of once again relearning this thing called life and unlearning all the self-shame we’ve carried with us, all the things we’ve allowed because we thought that’s just how it was supposed to be. It’s so hard for so many reasons, namely the fact that it takes time and we live in an age of super-mega instant gratification. Who wants to wait for results anymore? We just want to see them. But the first step is the first step, and it leads to more success, more peace, more awareness – more permission.