I am 22 hours into a fast. I am fasting to clean out my body and lose weight. At the end of the fast, I told myself I would go to the gym to push some heavy weight, then come home and break the fast with about 5 strips of bacon :)
I believe that the foundation of confidence, at least in my situation, is a healthy body and mind. I believe that the healthy mind follows the healthy body, so the body is first. Generations ago, there was not so much worry about having an unhealthy body, because our food was so much less processed. All natural foods, less chemicals in the environment. We are now in a world where we constantly validate ourselves through food and entertainment.
A problem I am having at the moment is actually putting on my shoes and driving 3 minutes down the street to get behind the chest press and push some weight. My thought process is going like this:
1) Wake up. Man, I'm hungry. Smoke a cigarette.
2) I've got to go the gym. I really don't want to go out there.
3) It's cold. I won't be in there long, just 15 or 20 minutes.
4) Eh, but I know there are all those big dudes in there. My little weight will be an embarrassment.
5) Just go - I need to do something good for myself (self-validation)
6) Smoke another cigarette. Really don't want to put my contacts on.
7) My knee and lower back hurt. (heart starts racing)
8) Maybe I should write all these thoughts down in the blog. How does all of this tie into my blog? (procrastination)
9) What if I forget all of these thought processes? I won't have anything to write about. (more procrastination)
10) I'll just jot it all down real quick, and then do my little workout. My body needs some good stress. (procrastination, followed by self-validation)
12) Nobody knows me there, I'll be in and out.
13) brb
...And I'm glad I went. I feel much better, and that bacon is going to be awesome.
Showing posts with label reduce anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reduce anxiety. Show all posts
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
How To Validate Yourself
If you have anxiety, depression or low self-esteem, I'm going to go ahead and guess that you have a problem self-validating yourself, and you constantly seek external validation. I am going to guess that you believe that you do not matter, and your needs are not meant to be met. You might not even realize that you believe these things, but the fact is, if you are unmotivated to bring changes into your life because of fear or low confidence (which is, in the end, fear), then it most likely comes from a place of "not good enough", which stems from shame endured in childhood.
How does that work? Well, if you are denied your needs, it sends the message that you aren't good enough to have your needs met, therefore later in life, you do things to sabotage your happiness. This usually manifests itself as, "I'm not good enough, so I won't try". You will procrastinate working on things, you will be scared to release your ideas to the public, you will not speak out for your beliefs, and you will probably not stand up for yourself in a healthy way. As these behaviors create more negative results, you will look at these results and say, "See, I really am no good," and worsen the cycle.
No human can have all his/her needs met in infancy. There will always be a time when someone is unable to feed you as soon as you are hungry, for example, or change your diaper. Helpless, you will panic because something that you need is being temporarily ignored. If this is often or intense enough, there is a chance that it can have disastrous effects. These feelings can be exacerbated in adolescence and beyond.
You don't really understand that your needs weren't met when you get older. Your life has always been just the way it is - this makes it easier to start to believe that something is wrong with you, and you will never be successful or happy.
I believe that accepting yourself, and validating yourself is the way to stopping anxiety, and therefore a host of other disorders.
So, how do you go about doing this, if you have never felt what it is like to be validated?
There is all kinds of advice on the internet about how to "love" yourself. A lot of what I am going to suggest has been suggested before, but I think that understanding what you are doing, and why, is paramount to actually following through with it! So let's get on with it:
1) Exercise
Almost any place you go, exercising is on the list of things to do to cure anxiety and depression. It is true, it works. It's easier said than done, though - a lot of times when you are depressed, you don't feel like going out, and it's easy to find an excuse not to go to the gym.
Look behind the action to see the mechanism. Maybe you weren't allowed to go outside when you were younger, or you were coddled a bit too much. Both of these situations lead you to believe that you aren't good enough to handle physical activity. It may seem like exercising is "not for you", but the human genome disagrees. It's for everybody, and necessary. You don't have to do a ton of work: Lifting weight is some of the best exercise you can do, and you just lift heavy a couple of times and go home (at first). This will have amazing results when you......
2) Change Your Diet
Another staple in the online advice for building confidence. Even if your mother cooked your meals, perhaps she used a lot of processed foods and canned goods. This communicates to you that you aren't good enough for healthy, natural foods, and you will spiral out of control later in life. I actually think this issue is more important than exercise. The modern world is full of processed food, almost all of it controlled by a handful of companies. Couple that with the fact that these companies use the media to spread false information about food, and you have a "recipe" for disaster. (lol)
Contrary to what you've been told all your life, your diet should consist of a lot of fat. Healthy fat, not cupcakes. I went on a bacon, steak and eggs diet for a month, and lost 20 pounds naturally. I also stayed full the duration of the time. I'll make a post dedicated to this, but for now, just eat bacon, eggs, beef, white rice, white potatoes, and green leafy vegetables, or those of the cruciferous variety - broccoli and spinach are great. Cook everything in butter, olive or coconut oil. Stay the eff away from: soda, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable oil, pasta, bread and beer.
After a week, your mind will clear up, and you will have lost weight. And you will miss soda and tacos.
Just by doing these things, you are telling yourself that you care. You care enough to put good nutrition into it, and you protect it by making it stronger. This is "loving yourself", not reading affirmations to a mirror. There are more ways to self-validate, but these 2 are foundations. Yes, you can show yourself that you love it by dressing nice and grooming, but until you love your body, these will always be secondary.
I struggled with the self-validation concept for a long time. I knew I had to exercise, but I could never muster the willpower to do it for an extended period. I couldn't see quick results, and that brought feelings of not being good enough, and I was left with a "what's the point?" type of view. I would then eat or booze up to get the high I was looking for. Nowadays, I appreciate the act for what it is, which is demonstrating love for myself. When it comes time to go to the gym, I know that I am going to strengthen my body because I want it to survive harsh conditions, instead of "God, I have to workout because if I don't, no one will like me". This small change in point of view is the difference between love and hate for the gym.
Once I started caring, my anxiety dropped precipitously. Things bother me less. I'm still a little anxious about seeing more results, but I'm finding it easier to write in this blog. The clarity and extra energy are working together to boost my confidence, and I am much less worried about how I write or what I write. It is truly a miracle.
How does that work? Well, if you are denied your needs, it sends the message that you aren't good enough to have your needs met, therefore later in life, you do things to sabotage your happiness. This usually manifests itself as, "I'm not good enough, so I won't try". You will procrastinate working on things, you will be scared to release your ideas to the public, you will not speak out for your beliefs, and you will probably not stand up for yourself in a healthy way. As these behaviors create more negative results, you will look at these results and say, "See, I really am no good," and worsen the cycle.
No human can have all his/her needs met in infancy. There will always be a time when someone is unable to feed you as soon as you are hungry, for example, or change your diaper. Helpless, you will panic because something that you need is being temporarily ignored. If this is often or intense enough, there is a chance that it can have disastrous effects. These feelings can be exacerbated in adolescence and beyond.
You don't really understand that your needs weren't met when you get older. Your life has always been just the way it is - this makes it easier to start to believe that something is wrong with you, and you will never be successful or happy.
I believe that accepting yourself, and validating yourself is the way to stopping anxiety, and therefore a host of other disorders.
So, how do you go about doing this, if you have never felt what it is like to be validated?
There is all kinds of advice on the internet about how to "love" yourself. A lot of what I am going to suggest has been suggested before, but I think that understanding what you are doing, and why, is paramount to actually following through with it! So let's get on with it:
1) Exercise
Almost any place you go, exercising is on the list of things to do to cure anxiety and depression. It is true, it works. It's easier said than done, though - a lot of times when you are depressed, you don't feel like going out, and it's easy to find an excuse not to go to the gym.
Look behind the action to see the mechanism. Maybe you weren't allowed to go outside when you were younger, or you were coddled a bit too much. Both of these situations lead you to believe that you aren't good enough to handle physical activity. It may seem like exercising is "not for you", but the human genome disagrees. It's for everybody, and necessary. You don't have to do a ton of work: Lifting weight is some of the best exercise you can do, and you just lift heavy a couple of times and go home (at first). This will have amazing results when you......
2) Change Your Diet
Another staple in the online advice for building confidence. Even if your mother cooked your meals, perhaps she used a lot of processed foods and canned goods. This communicates to you that you aren't good enough for healthy, natural foods, and you will spiral out of control later in life. I actually think this issue is more important than exercise. The modern world is full of processed food, almost all of it controlled by a handful of companies. Couple that with the fact that these companies use the media to spread false information about food, and you have a "recipe" for disaster. (lol)
Contrary to what you've been told all your life, your diet should consist of a lot of fat. Healthy fat, not cupcakes. I went on a bacon, steak and eggs diet for a month, and lost 20 pounds naturally. I also stayed full the duration of the time. I'll make a post dedicated to this, but for now, just eat bacon, eggs, beef, white rice, white potatoes, and green leafy vegetables, or those of the cruciferous variety - broccoli and spinach are great. Cook everything in butter, olive or coconut oil. Stay the eff away from: soda, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable oil, pasta, bread and beer.
After a week, your mind will clear up, and you will have lost weight. And you will miss soda and tacos.
Just by doing these things, you are telling yourself that you care. You care enough to put good nutrition into it, and you protect it by making it stronger. This is "loving yourself", not reading affirmations to a mirror. There are more ways to self-validate, but these 2 are foundations. Yes, you can show yourself that you love it by dressing nice and grooming, but until you love your body, these will always be secondary.
I struggled with the self-validation concept for a long time. I knew I had to exercise, but I could never muster the willpower to do it for an extended period. I couldn't see quick results, and that brought feelings of not being good enough, and I was left with a "what's the point?" type of view. I would then eat or booze up to get the high I was looking for. Nowadays, I appreciate the act for what it is, which is demonstrating love for myself. When it comes time to go to the gym, I know that I am going to strengthen my body because I want it to survive harsh conditions, instead of "God, I have to workout because if I don't, no one will like me". This small change in point of view is the difference between love and hate for the gym.
Once I started caring, my anxiety dropped precipitously. Things bother me less. I'm still a little anxious about seeing more results, but I'm finding it easier to write in this blog. The clarity and extra energy are working together to boost my confidence, and I am much less worried about how I write or what I write. It is truly a miracle.
Build Your Self-Esteem With Self-Validation
I had an epiphany yesterday.
I started this blog many years ago, because I was struggling with my lot in life. I always hated the jobs I ended up in. I didn't much care for society in general. Especially after the internet came around, I always wanted to make tons of money online, so that I didn't have to deal with anyone, and just run around doing whatever I wanted to: travel, make art and construct my empire.
I've never had a problem studying things. I am actually well-versed in tons of concepts, from psychology to economy. It didn't take me long to figure out the mechanics of making money online. I wanted to make money blogging, and I decided to take low-competition keywords about confidence to manifest my experiences, while giving you all some hope or even answers.
Of course, I didn't stick with it. I blogged for a while. I created a few backlinks. I got a little traffic. But there was no money. The only thing that I had for monetization on this site was an affiliate banner for a binaural sounds program, and I made a few posts about it, even though I only used it a few times.
I think I may have been jobless at the time I started blogging. I was an alcoholic and I often stewed in my own misery and "hid out", not participating in society. I did this under the pretense that I didn't agree with anything society was doing, so I just wouldn't take part in it. Looking back, it was because I was anxious and afraid of being humiliated out there, or being physically harmed. This obviously led to hating myself more and more; reinforcing my thoughts about life being unfair, and directing my hatred towards people that were "successful". I had no self-confidence.
The epiphany was this:
If I had made money, I would have felt great.
That's a problem.
It's a problem, because it means that I needed money to feel validated.
How many times have you ever thought to yourself, "If I only had X, I would feel better"?
"If I had money". "If I had a better car". "If I had beautiful women". "If my teeth were straight".
This is more of a site for men, but girls think, "If I had bigger boobs".
All of these statements share one thing in common: They are seeking validation from something EXTERNAL, meaning that you feel as if you are a worthless human being if "having X" is not a true statement. That is a difficult equation to solve. If you cannot validate yourself INTERNALLY, then if you cannot find external validation, you will feel lost and inadequate.
You can start to fight for a better car, or braces for your teeth, so you can attract women. But if you start off without these things, yet need them to feel validated, you will hesitate and spiral into self-doubt. At least, that is what happened to me.
I started making a shift to an internal validation process about a week ago, after reading about self-validation. I fasted for 18 hours - to give my body a chance to recuperate. I went to the gym afterward, to try and build strength. I didn't eat anything processed or sweetened. A few days later, I realized this truth about what I had been actually seeking externally, and why I was feeling bad when it never came to me, or when it did come to me, but not how I wanted it or expected it.
I was raised by well-meaning, but super-strict parents. I was expected to help raise my brother and sister and put myself second. I pretty much always expected to not get what I wanted, because I was conditioned that way. I grew up "a nice kid", because I was always courteous and put myself before others. I never knew that I was allowed to have my needs met. This caused me to lash out at religion and authority figures throughout my life.
Trying Something....Anything
I didn't know what to do about anything, honestly. I tried to read everything I could about depression, anxiety and self-confidence, but nothing rang a bell for me. I still have self-confidence problems, but I can feel the path that I'm supposed to go towards.
I'm happy I made this blog, though. Even if the first posts are cringy when I read them now, I'm happy I did something. If anything, I could sort my thoughts out. Now, however, I'm going to be focusing on something different.
I started this blog many years ago, because I was struggling with my lot in life. I always hated the jobs I ended up in. I didn't much care for society in general. Especially after the internet came around, I always wanted to make tons of money online, so that I didn't have to deal with anyone, and just run around doing whatever I wanted to: travel, make art and construct my empire.
I've never had a problem studying things. I am actually well-versed in tons of concepts, from psychology to economy. It didn't take me long to figure out the mechanics of making money online. I wanted to make money blogging, and I decided to take low-competition keywords about confidence to manifest my experiences, while giving you all some hope or even answers.
Of course, I didn't stick with it. I blogged for a while. I created a few backlinks. I got a little traffic. But there was no money. The only thing that I had for monetization on this site was an affiliate banner for a binaural sounds program, and I made a few posts about it, even though I only used it a few times.
I think I may have been jobless at the time I started blogging. I was an alcoholic and I often stewed in my own misery and "hid out", not participating in society. I did this under the pretense that I didn't agree with anything society was doing, so I just wouldn't take part in it. Looking back, it was because I was anxious and afraid of being humiliated out there, or being physically harmed. This obviously led to hating myself more and more; reinforcing my thoughts about life being unfair, and directing my hatred towards people that were "successful". I had no self-confidence.
The epiphany was this:
If I had made money, I would have felt great.
That's a problem.
It's a problem, because it means that I needed money to feel validated.
How many times have you ever thought to yourself, "If I only had X, I would feel better"?
"If I had money". "If I had a better car". "If I had beautiful women". "If my teeth were straight".
This is more of a site for men, but girls think, "If I had bigger boobs".
All of these statements share one thing in common: They are seeking validation from something EXTERNAL, meaning that you feel as if you are a worthless human being if "having X" is not a true statement. That is a difficult equation to solve. If you cannot validate yourself INTERNALLY, then if you cannot find external validation, you will feel lost and inadequate.
You can start to fight for a better car, or braces for your teeth, so you can attract women. But if you start off without these things, yet need them to feel validated, you will hesitate and spiral into self-doubt. At least, that is what happened to me.
I started making a shift to an internal validation process about a week ago, after reading about self-validation. I fasted for 18 hours - to give my body a chance to recuperate. I went to the gym afterward, to try and build strength. I didn't eat anything processed or sweetened. A few days later, I realized this truth about what I had been actually seeking externally, and why I was feeling bad when it never came to me, or when it did come to me, but not how I wanted it or expected it.
I was raised by well-meaning, but super-strict parents. I was expected to help raise my brother and sister and put myself second. I pretty much always expected to not get what I wanted, because I was conditioned that way. I grew up "a nice kid", because I was always courteous and put myself before others. I never knew that I was allowed to have my needs met. This caused me to lash out at religion and authority figures throughout my life.
Trying Something....Anything
I didn't know what to do about anything, honestly. I tried to read everything I could about depression, anxiety and self-confidence, but nothing rang a bell for me. I still have self-confidence problems, but I can feel the path that I'm supposed to go towards.
I'm happy I made this blog, though. Even if the first posts are cringy when I read them now, I'm happy I did something. If anything, I could sort my thoughts out. Now, however, I'm going to be focusing on something different.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
You're Not a Special Snowflake
Been forever since I've been on here...in the last years, I've taken somewhat of a beating.
But it's great, because I learned something...nothing is owed to me. I AM NOT A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE (until I make myself into one)!
I wrote this earlier, and I was struck how it came out. It seemed unlike me:
But it's great, because I learned something...nothing is owed to me. I AM NOT A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE (until I make myself into one)!
I wrote this earlier, and I was struck how it came out. It seemed unlike me:
You are not a special snowflake. Your genes and your
environment have shaped you into a somewhat predictable machine. You
can learn to change, however, and it is in your best interest to do
so.
Since
you are pretty much the same as every other swinging dick on this
planet, you must stay ahead of the curve. You should get it into your
thick skull that you are in competition, even though it just seems
like you go to work every day, and go home and "compete" at
video games at night. The more you avert your eyes to the world, the
more things happen in the shadows. Any one of those hidden things can
be your doom.
Why
all of the soothsaying, when this is a book about confidence and
being shy? Because I will hope that this attitude will instill in you
some necessity. When you realize that your shyness is taking away
from your opportunity, and makes your life harder, you understand
that all failure is your own.
Take
for example the Santa Barbara shootings, at the beginning of 2014.
This guy was attending a prestigous school in California. His father
had a career in Hollywood, so there was plenty of money. He was
pissed off that he wasn't getting laid, and made the decision to be
the "alpha male". He knifed his 3 male roommates to death,
then set out on the streets in his BMW, and ended up shooting 3 women
to death before running from the police and eventually shooting
himself.
Although
his financial situation and education were taken care of, he was
still in direct competition with the "brutes" that were
banging all of his would-be conquests. You see, he took his situation
for
granted,
and saw no need to change himself – it must be the world that's
fucked up, so he went on his rampage. Instead of taking
responsibility for himself, and maybe going on one of the millions of
pick-up artist websites to learn how to be a "brute", he
might have been able to escape death before loss of virginity.
If
you understand that all of the time you lose by not talking to
people, forming relationships, socializing, and going out is all
your fault,
then it might kickstart you into actually getting something done
about it.
Monday, September 7, 2009
I'm So Anxious I Don't Get Anything Done
I often find myself not getting anything done because of overbearing anxiety. I have millions of ideas, but I never seem to get anything accomplished, because I start to second-guess the possible results. I start to wonder what the results will be before I even start, and, more often than not, the results that I come up with are negative.
Your mind is like a probabilities-processing computer
Or at least mine is. I will have a "brilliant" idea, then start thinking about what I need to do to get it done. For an example, I'll use this blog. I used to look for ways to make money online and otherwise, and I came upon the school of using the search engines to drive traffic to a website by targeting keywords and getting backlinks. This intrigued me, of course, because I thought that I could make money, not have to go outside and meet anyone, and I would have nobody telling me what to do. What a blessing for someone with social anxiety!
- I started assessing the situation:
First thing I needed to do was find keywords, so I looked around and found some, and also found possible sponsors that could pay me once my website started getting traffic. Didn't contact anyone, of course, I just looked and noted ones that I might contact in the future. After that, I made the blog, targeted a few keywords, and wrote an entry or two. I started realizing that it wouldn't happen overnight - that I was going to have to stick with this thing for a long time! That discouraged me, and I eventually stopped posting. I would think, "Wow, I really picked some highly competitive keywords, and I'll never be able to get any traffic for this stuff." My anxiety started getting the best of me.
The Confident Person Just Does It
What I should have been doing in the first place, was just DOING it! It doesn't matter if it sucks, or if the traffic doesn't roll in for a year. The point is, if I had have started writing on a daily basis, I would have a formidable blog by now, and one that would be a great place to backlink from. This idea of creating for the sake of creating eludes a lot of people with social anxiety, and keeps us from getting anything done.
Keeping your mind from thinking about the future will keep you closer to where you're supposed to be and what you should be doing - doing something! The more you sit and ruminate all the possibilities for failure, the less likely you will be to get out there and make something happen. Now, I still have serious anxiety issues, but for the past year, I've been trying to change my ridiculous thinking habits in order to be a little more productive. Here's what I do:
1) If I have an idea, I start working on it very quickly. Today, I started having some anxious feelings about not getting anything done, and then I thought, "Wait, I have a blog for that. I'll just make a post." And now I'm here.
2) I stop thinking about hyperbolic results. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is going to read my blog and just start laughing. This is what anxiety is all about. It is an exaggerated fear of something that probably won't happen. And even everyone in the world read the thing, not everyone would laugh. Some people may get some help!
3) I flip the negative to positive. If someone read it and thought I was stupid for writing this, I would view it as a reason to step my game up. I know that no one's perfect, and you can't please everyone. But, if enough people say you suck, maybe you should look into it. This is where the "that which does not kill me will make me stronger" saying comes from.
Less anxiety = more confidence!
Your mind is like a probabilities-processing computer
Or at least mine is. I will have a "brilliant" idea, then start thinking about what I need to do to get it done. For an example, I'll use this blog. I used to look for ways to make money online and otherwise, and I came upon the school of using the search engines to drive traffic to a website by targeting keywords and getting backlinks. This intrigued me, of course, because I thought that I could make money, not have to go outside and meet anyone, and I would have nobody telling me what to do. What a blessing for someone with social anxiety!
- I started assessing the situation:
First thing I needed to do was find keywords, so I looked around and found some, and also found possible sponsors that could pay me once my website started getting traffic. Didn't contact anyone, of course, I just looked and noted ones that I might contact in the future. After that, I made the blog, targeted a few keywords, and wrote an entry or two. I started realizing that it wouldn't happen overnight - that I was going to have to stick with this thing for a long time! That discouraged me, and I eventually stopped posting. I would think, "Wow, I really picked some highly competitive keywords, and I'll never be able to get any traffic for this stuff." My anxiety started getting the best of me.
The Confident Person Just Does It
What I should have been doing in the first place, was just DOING it! It doesn't matter if it sucks, or if the traffic doesn't roll in for a year. The point is, if I had have started writing on a daily basis, I would have a formidable blog by now, and one that would be a great place to backlink from. This idea of creating for the sake of creating eludes a lot of people with social anxiety, and keeps us from getting anything done.
Keeping your mind from thinking about the future will keep you closer to where you're supposed to be and what you should be doing - doing something! The more you sit and ruminate all the possibilities for failure, the less likely you will be to get out there and make something happen. Now, I still have serious anxiety issues, but for the past year, I've been trying to change my ridiculous thinking habits in order to be a little more productive. Here's what I do:
1) If I have an idea, I start working on it very quickly. Today, I started having some anxious feelings about not getting anything done, and then I thought, "Wait, I have a blog for that. I'll just make a post." And now I'm here.
2) I stop thinking about hyperbolic results. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is going to read my blog and just start laughing. This is what anxiety is all about. It is an exaggerated fear of something that probably won't happen. And even everyone in the world read the thing, not everyone would laugh. Some people may get some help!
3) I flip the negative to positive. If someone read it and thought I was stupid for writing this, I would view it as a reason to step my game up. I know that no one's perfect, and you can't please everyone. But, if enough people say you suck, maybe you should look into it. This is where the "that which does not kill me will make me stronger" saying comes from.
Less anxiety = more confidence!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Build More Confidence - A Word About Social Anxiety
If you're like me, then you have low self-confidence due to social anxiety. This is a paralyzing disorder that can lead to depression and procrastination. Since almost everything we do is based on society, this can mean that you really don't feel like doing anything at all, and that makes it hard to have confidence or build more confidence. After all, how can you be confident around people when you're scared of what you'll say or if you might embarrass yourself?
I never realized it fully until recently, but I struggled (and still struggle) with social anxiety for many, many years. It would manifest itself in all kinds of ways, and I would even fear doing things around my house, when no one is around. That's just crazy.
My social ineptitude was magnified when I would try to talk to someone or try something new, and fail miserably. This only reinforced my already shitty self-image, and sunk me deeper into depression and isolation around strangers, especially. I've always had a close group of friends - I always seem to seek out people who display similar traits, and I feel "safe" around them. I always felt/feel more confident around them, but around strangers I was like a deer in headlights.
This sent me spiraling into alcohol abuse and depression. Since I was severely inhibited while I was sober, I decided that I liked alcohol because it took away all of those feelings of not knowing what to say or how to act around strangers. Truly, I was a lot of things on alcohol - charming, hilarious, uninhibited, assertive and dangerous - all things that I thought were great qualities, but none of which I could achieve sober because of my "shyness".
This is common in sufferers of social anxiety, and in my case it got me in a whole hell of a lot of trouble. Once my drinking went over-the-top, so did my antics, and I really didn't care one way or the other what people thought (finally!).
Building self-confidence isn't something that alcohol can do for you. Once the potion wears off, you're right back where you started, and you're probably a little more depressed that it took a beatdown on your liver and wallet to get you the guts to go and talk to that semi-pretty female playing card games on the crackbox at your local bar.
But battling social anxiety is a true bitch. The only proven method of permanent change is through Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, in which the false beliefs you have about yourself (I'm ugly, no one likes me, I could never do that, I can't talk in public, etc.) must be shown to you and systematically and slowly changed. Immersing yourself in your fears only shows you your failures and reinforces your false belief system. To make matters worse, most therapists don't really like to cite the cause "social anxiety" in their diagnoses. My guess on that is because they would rather pawn off medication on the general public to keep everyone paid, except for the suffering victim. I could go on and on about that in another blog, but this blog is about building self-confidence!
So, before you try and go out to your doctor to get yourself some Paxil or whatever, think about what you're really afraid of. If you start to ask yourself some questions, you may figure out that you're really afraid of nothing (you might already know that), and that's the first step in looking for a real way to get better, and become more confident.
I never realized it fully until recently, but I struggled (and still struggle) with social anxiety for many, many years. It would manifest itself in all kinds of ways, and I would even fear doing things around my house, when no one is around. That's just crazy.
My social ineptitude was magnified when I would try to talk to someone or try something new, and fail miserably. This only reinforced my already shitty self-image, and sunk me deeper into depression and isolation around strangers, especially. I've always had a close group of friends - I always seem to seek out people who display similar traits, and I feel "safe" around them. I always felt/feel more confident around them, but around strangers I was like a deer in headlights.
This sent me spiraling into alcohol abuse and depression. Since I was severely inhibited while I was sober, I decided that I liked alcohol because it took away all of those feelings of not knowing what to say or how to act around strangers. Truly, I was a lot of things on alcohol - charming, hilarious, uninhibited, assertive and dangerous - all things that I thought were great qualities, but none of which I could achieve sober because of my "shyness".
This is common in sufferers of social anxiety, and in my case it got me in a whole hell of a lot of trouble. Once my drinking went over-the-top, so did my antics, and I really didn't care one way or the other what people thought (finally!).
Building self-confidence isn't something that alcohol can do for you. Once the potion wears off, you're right back where you started, and you're probably a little more depressed that it took a beatdown on your liver and wallet to get you the guts to go and talk to that semi-pretty female playing card games on the crackbox at your local bar.
But battling social anxiety is a true bitch. The only proven method of permanent change is through Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, in which the false beliefs you have about yourself (I'm ugly, no one likes me, I could never do that, I can't talk in public, etc.) must be shown to you and systematically and slowly changed. Immersing yourself in your fears only shows you your failures and reinforces your false belief system. To make matters worse, most therapists don't really like to cite the cause "social anxiety" in their diagnoses. My guess on that is because they would rather pawn off medication on the general public to keep everyone paid, except for the suffering victim. I could go on and on about that in another blog, but this blog is about building self-confidence!
So, before you try and go out to your doctor to get yourself some Paxil or whatever, think about what you're really afraid of. If you start to ask yourself some questions, you may figure out that you're really afraid of nothing (you might already know that), and that's the first step in looking for a real way to get better, and become more confident.
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