finding the confidence and staying connected to your authentic Self

Shyness or disease?

If you have ever wondered about where the line between shyness and a disorder of panic or anxiety or social anxiety exists, check out this Washington Post article. Lisa Braithwaite talks about it on her blog.

The line's been changing! As the newspaper article explains. It's kind of scary stuff. The implications are around how people should be helped for shyness or social anxiety. Should it be medicated? Or addressed through a talk therapy approach?

I think it's helpful to name things that are happening unconsciously inside of us. When we name stuff, we can notice it happening in our minds and this creates the opportunity to have a choice in the matter. Where previously this thing going on, that we're doing, has gone undistinguished. And unnoticed. Yet it maybe controlling us.

Like without realizing it, avoiding certain situations that maybe stressful. Now with the realization that you are avoiding a situation, you can say, oh, yeah, that's me wanting to avoid. What if I go there and practice my breathing? Or practice being receptive with my eyes to people? Without having to effort alot? Allowing others to take care of themselves? Without me having to entertain or be some kind of impressive person?

Or once you name a problem, you can then get help for it. It's hard to get help if you are totally unaware.

But I can also see how naming something can imprison you. Leave you feeling like you have some label on you that you cannot escape from. You have this disease. It then becomes a part of who you are, a part of your identity, part of how you see yourself. And then are you making yourself bad for having some disease? Layers of self-bashing can build pretty thick.

Medications have side effects. That's no joke. And I also believe that every person has the right to take care of themselves. So I want to support you in breaking free and getting what you need if you're not doing something because you've been taught that it's shameful (like therapy or whatever it is).

What do you think?

Modern freedom to be who you are?

This morning I was reading a post over at Dream Jobs Dialog about how in the modern era we are so blessed to be able to choose what we do with our lives, what we do for work. And how this wasn't so true for our relatives in the past.

Do you feel you have a choice? How much are you living in this modern era? Taking advantage of the freedoms available? Or are you living as if it was hundreds of years ago? Destined to misery?

I began to wonder, do you really believe that you are free to express who you are and to do what you want to do? Is this true for you?

I'd like to believe it...

I notice that I want to believe this is true. And yet, I have it deeply ingrained in me that I can't. That life is about struggle. It is about a hellish kind of hard work. It is about being professional (as in making money robot of sorts). It is about bundling up who you are, tight as a drum. So not a glimmer of joy or creativity gets out.

"Oh, but I love the colors of Red and Purple and the swirl of my pen around the smooth surface of the off-white paper." My heart cries out. (this is the creative, authentic voice that has gotten strangled and silenced my whole life)

What I'm waking up to in myself as I explore this question about can we really be who we are and do work we love, is that I have wanted that. Hoped for that. But operated under rules that outlawed it.

That I am truly a creative spirit. I am a writer and a creative spirit. That is WHO I AM. There is something deep inside me that knows that. (what do you know about yourself?)

But freedom like that just isn't true for me. (well, not yet)

I thought I had to be...

That the way I learned I was supposed to be was wearing a black, wool suit. With a professional demeanor, a frown or scowl? Or fake smile with ultra-white teeth? Focused on making money and making profits and acting intelligent. Void of emotional content. It was the jail keeper for the true me. My creative energy that wanted to flow.

So what rules are you living by? What does your jail keeper say? Who do you have to be? Act like?

For these are the things that really produce the fear you experience. They stop your natural expression. And that makes tension as the two clash. (doesn't feel too good, huh?)

So how can you do what you want (and be a 'modern' free person), if you don't know what rules you live under? And what's freely trying to get out instead?

Want to shake things up? Do something creative? To see when the jail keeper will say no? See where your desire flows, but your rules control? Take a class. Try something new, like Curt's doing this year at M.A.P. Maker. Pottery? Jewelry design? Drawing? Public speaking? Cooking?