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.
resting in the imperfect spaces
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.
giving anxiety an identity
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.
on validation and giving ourselves permission
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.