Beating Social Anxiety

What matters now - get the free e-book

2009-12-14T06:42:00.000-05:00

Here's a free e-book that you should not miss. It's a compilation of quotes from the best contemporary minds. It's inspiring. It will make you stand up from your chair and make a difference. I plan to print it and read at least one page a day... hey, it might even get me to start writing again.

Below is one page extract that is significant to this blog... Just like the author below, I found that once I became free of my anxiety I became much more skilled socially than most of the people around. While being trapped in social anxiety and trying to find a rational way out of it, without even realizing it, you learn a lot about human nature and being social.

S O C I A L S K I L L S

I have really bad social skills, so I am constantly noticing
how the whole world revolves around social skills.
Research that really blows me away is that people would
rather work with someone who is incompetent and
likable than someone who is a competent jerk. And
then I saw that in some cases elite British crew teams
will put a weaker, but very likable, rower on a boat
because people row faster if they row with people they
like.
In my life, I have had to learn social skills one by one,
because I have Asperger Syndrome. I learned to smile at
jokes even though I’m too literal to understand most of
them; I listen to the rhythm of a sentence to know
when it’s time to laugh. And I learned how to say, “How
are you,” with the right tone of voice – to express
interest – although to be honest, saying that phrase
gives me so much anxiety that I never actually say it.
A few years ago I found myself smack in the middle of
the recruiting industry. I ended up, somehow, being an
expert on how to attract candidates, and an expert on
how to present yourself well to employers. At first I
thought it was absurd. I’ve never worked in human
resources, and I’ve never been a recruiter. But then I
realized that I’m an expert on the hiring process because
it’s all about social skills, and I’ve been studying them
my whole life so that I don’t look like a freak.
In fact, it’s not just getting a job. Or giving a job.
Getting or giving anything is about social skills. The
world is about being comfortable where you are and
making people feel comfortable, and that’s what social
skills are. What’s important is to be kind, and be
gracious and do it in ways that make people want to do
that for someone else.

Penelope Trunk is the founder of BrazenCarerist.com. Her blog is
blog.penelopetrunk.com.

Engage with Grace - a Blog Rally

2009-11-23T02:27:00.001-05:00

Last Thanksgiving weekend, many of us bloggers participated in the first documented “blog rally” to promote Engage With Grace – a movement aimed at having all of us understand and communicate our end-of-life wishes.

It was a great success, with over 100 bloggers in the healthcare space and beyond participating and spreading the word. Plus, it was timed to coincide with a weekend when most of us are with the very people with whom we should be having these tough conversations – our closest friends and family.

Our original mission – to get more and more people talking about their end of life wishes – hasn’t changed. But it’s been quite a year – so we thought this holiday, we’d try something different.

A bit of levity.

At the heart of Engage With Grace are five questions designed to get the conversation started. We’ve included them at the end of this post. They’re not easy questions, but they are important.

To help ease us into these tough questions, and in the spirit of the season, we thought we’d start with five parallel questions that ARE pretty easy to answer:

Silly? Maybe. But it underscores how having a template like this – just five questions in plain, simple language – can deflate some of the complexity, formality and even misnomers that have sometimes surrounded the end-of-life discussion.

So with that, we’ve included the five questions from Engage With Grace below. Think about them, document them, share them.

Over the past year there’s been a lot of discussion around end of life. And we’ve been fortunate to hear a lot of the more uplifting stories, as folks have used these five questions to initiate the conversation.

One man shared how surprised he was to learn that his wife’s preferences were not what he expected. Befitting this holiday, The One Slide now stands sentry on their fridge.

Wishing you and yours a holiday that’s fulfilling in all the right ways.

To learn more please go to www.engagewithgrace.org. This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team. If you want to reproduce this post on your blog (or anywhere) you can download a ready-made html version here

Dr. Rob's post on anxiety

2009-10-10T00:25:00.000-04:00

Dr. Rob has a great post on anxiety. Make sure you read it. It's worth knowing what happens in a doctor's head when you have anxiety.

http://distractible.org/2009/10/09/anxiety/

Doing well!

2009-07-05T06:43:00.004-04:00

Long time, no see!

I'm in a contemplative mode right now, so I figured I could write an update. My social anxiety is better than ever. I'm feeling funny at times, but I just acknowledge it and brush it off: it's just like having a runny nose: just take a tissue, wipe your nose and move on. No big fuss. Just yesterday I casually invited my brothers in law out for lunch... me? alone with guys other than my husband?making the invitation without any hint of hezitation? - who's this girl?

I dropped yoga for a long time, and I just got back to it this last week. I am a different person, I found back my anxiety-free world. I see now that I have conditioned myself to be anxiety-free when doing yoga. So I need to keep on doing it. It's great!

I will be moving out of the country for 6 months and I am quite emotional and observant about everything around: admiring my neighbourhood, the trees, the birds, my car. I am packing my whole house and it's great to touch each object. Bring back memories.

For those of you that were around at the time when I had an impossible dream, the dream became quite possible. I am taking an online course of Health Care for IT Professionals and doing really well and I think by the end of this course I will be able to find some work. My doctor was already interested in me coming to review her workflow and help with their new EMR system.

The conclusion is: social anxiety can be beaten without medication. You can achieve your dreams no matter how crazy they seem to be. Just don't give up. Keep pushing yourself. But you need to know what you're pushing for: clarify your priorities and your goals.

Exposure Therapy Helps Relieve Social Anxiety

2009-04-13T19:34:00.002-04:00

No man is an island, and as human beings, we have to interact with society in some form or the other if we are to survive on a day to day basis. So you can understand how social anxiety becomes a problem for those who live with it day after day and restrict their lives because of this mental disorder. When you’re afraid of communication and other aspects of public life like driving, flying, walking on the streets, shopping and the like, you can see how it becomes a problem to do perform even the most basic activities.

While some people turn to medication as a way to resolve these feelings of anxiety and fear, drugs are not recommended unless your symptoms are severe and unmanageable. Besides, medicines that are used to treat such disorders include anti-depressants, beta blockers and benzodiazepines that are full of chemicals that could turn out to be addictive and that also come with their own side effects. Instead of relying on medicines, one of the best ways to tackle social anxiety is to try exposure therapy.

For those of you who know how to ride a bike, this form of treatment is just like learning to ride your bike for the first time. You’re scared, you have no sense of balance, and you’re terrified of hurting yourself. But you go ahead and try it because you so badly want to ride that new bike. Exposure therapy is all about overcoming your fears too, step by step, bit by bit. Just as someone holds on to your bike for the first few minutes and then lets go so that you try to gain a sense of balance, exposure therapy too involves breaking down your fear into smaller pieces and tackling the smallest one first.

So if you’re scared to talk to the opposite sex, start out by talking to someone you already know, like the girl/boy next door who always smiles at you, the smile that you were too nervous to return until now. Then move on to talking to people who are normally courteous, like salespeople and customer service representatives. It’s not going to be easy, and just like in the biking lesson, you’re going to end up falling quite a few times. But the key to success is to pick yourself up, brush the dust off your clothes, forget the minor bruises that you may have, and get right back on that bike again.

xposure therapy works best when you have someone to support you, just as your dad or mom would hold on to the bike till you’re able to find your bearings. You also need to know when to push yourself and when to stop – go as far as your fear will let you go but stop once you reach that point. You need to keep at one level till you feel no fear at all, and only then can you move on to the next level. It’s a slow process, but the infusion of confidence you feel when you master each level and move on to the next one will help you cross the next one faster than you did the first. So stick with it, and you’ll find yourself managing your anxiety in no time at all.

This post was contributed by Alisa Johnson, who writes about the types of nurses. She welcomes your feedback at Alisa.Johnson1982 at gmail.com

Livin' in the moment - the book

2009-03-22T08:42:00.003-04:00

A commenter asked me to recommend other books like Michael Pollan's. I did not read other books like Michael Pollan's, but here's another recommendation: brand new, released on March 17, David Romanelli's book: Yeah Dave's Guide to Living in the Moment - Getting to Ecstasy through wine, chocolate and your iPod list.

The book is excellent! I went to his yoga classes whenever he was around over the last year and I am reading his email newsletter and I pretty much know all the jokes, but I still find it refreshing to read the book. Dave is great. He's just another guy and is admitting it. Only he's not just another guy. The way he's observing the world and the way he's showing how he deals with it it's very original. He's fun and honest, silly and serious.

I have a hard time realizing why I like him, but I am hooked. His is the kind of yoga that I want to practice. You can also check out his blog for funny and interesting weekly posts.

6 years - We Will Not Forget You

2009-02-14T08:05:00.007-05:00

6 years ago, on Valentine's day, I was admitted into the hospital. I was 24 weeks pregnant and I was feeling great. But my doctor's appointment showed a blood pressure of 180/100, and my kidneys were spilling a lot of protein - sign that they are not functioning well... I had preeclampsia. It is a disease that could be very dangerous for the mother and the baby. The only known cure is delivery of the baby, and at 24 weeks of pregnancy, this is problematic as the babies cannot live without a lot of interventions and they risk blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy, and all sorts of other issues.

My baby was stillborn on February 17, and my own hospital ride after delivery was quite bumpy: fluid in the lungs, unexplained high fever, high blood pressure... the problems never seemed to end.

After this, we became involved with the Preeclampsia Foundation and I made a ton of friends there and acquired knowledge about my disease and support for our subsequent pregnancy. I am so grateful that the organization and the forum exists because they were my family for a number of years. If you know anyone having any similar issues, make sure you tell them about the website.

6 years later, I finally feel a bit more detached from the experience. I'm still thinking about it, but the trauma is mostly gone. Of course having a 3 years old that is extremely happy and healthy and normal in any way helps a lot.

This year, for the first time, my 3 yo son could somewhat understand what I'm talking about. He asked if we're lightning a candle for Angel's birthday, and he wanted to sing Happy Birthday and to bake Angel a cake. We will go see the ocean where Angel's ashes were spread. It is comforting to know that anywhere there's a sea or ocean there could be a microscopic cell of our dear son.

The other thing I did for Angel was to plant a little garden of Forget-Me-Nots and Lilly-of-the-Valleys (called little tears - Lacramioare - in Romanian). It is great during the spring and summer, but in the winter, there's nothing there.

I have a friend, Kitty, that takes great nature pictures and she happened to have the Forget-Me-Not picture above. She got me a beautiful print that I framed and I am now keeping with my family pictures. I love the personal nature of buying stuff made by friends, and to personally know the artist or person that made something.

Photo courtesy of Kitty Wilkin

My class graduated

2009-02-10T18:56:00.002-05:00

For the last couple of years while I was blogging about social anxiety, I also followed a number of other social-anxiety related blogs. And, happily for all of us, it seems that we all graduated:

S A Dave got a job and he's doing pretty well there and has no spare time to write,
"The guy at Successfully Shy" moved on with life (and Congratulations for the recent event!)
Matt released his e-book
Drew gave away his blog to Vladimir
and I keep dreaming about starting to blog about something else.

I keep promising and I always come back. Well, I had a very promising proof of my emotional maturity this week-end and I also will start having a bit more time at work... so I think now it's the time to get this project going.

It's time for a new generation of socially anxious to take over. The world is so much different these days: you have UTube and communities all over the place. Good luck to you all!

Books - Michael Pollan

2009-02-01T19:12:00.002-05:00

I heard a few people positively mentioning Michael Pollan's - The Omnivore Dilemma, so I read it and I loved it so much that I had to also read In Defense of Food.

Finally food and nutrition books that make sense instead of scaring you to death and making you wonder how come other people aren't dead by now with the food they eat. The Omnivore Dilemma starts by describing the industry of growing corn in America and all its uses, and the drama of both the producer and the consumer in an industrialized agriculture. It continues with a trip to a "post-organic" farm in Virginia, and end with his adventures in hunting and gathering the food for a meal the way our ancestors must have done it.

In Defense of Food suggests a heathier way of eating that might help avoid the Western diseases. It explains where nutritionism and reductionist studies fail. He suggests that we restart eating the way our ancestors did and keep the food culture alive. We need to know where our food comes from and need to be mindful while eating it.

I especially loved The Omnivore Dilemma... as I read through it, I wanted to go and start a farm myself...

In the end I have an idea where I want to go and I have a probable explanation for my ulcerative colitis. While this was not mentioned as one of the Western Diseases, I think it fits right in. The books are very well researched, they are shockful of references.

My conclusions: over the next couple of years I will work on restarting to eat the way my parents did, I will start my own garden and will subscribe to a CSA. I will work toward going less often to grocery stores and on eating more plants and more diverse foods. I will also work towards becoming more mindful of our eating and cook more. I will prefer food quality to food quantity.

And I now decided: I do not want to become a vegetarian. I will try to shift the ratio from meat towards plants, but I see no need to give up meat completely. (check meat.org if you want to become a vegetarian)

Wellsphere and bloggers

2009-01-29T18:24:00.002-05:00

I had a post earlier this year ranting about health websites that try to buy small blogs like mine. The website that contacted me was Wellsphere - basically a collection of medical blogs. I answered to the mass email by saying that i am not interested and that if they really want to help people they can link to my blog. I did get the link and as opposed to people that gave away their posts, I actually got a few hits from them.

Wellsphere was sold earlier this week for a lot of money. The bloggers are very offended as they did not get any money out of the deal but gave away all the rights to their content republished by Wellsphere.

For more details about this check Dr. Rob's comment. Always be very careful what you sign up for and make sure it's really what you want.

I'm grateful for my eyes

2009-01-16T16:21:00.002-05:00

A yoga teacher friend of mine, Kitty had a heartbreaking post today about her hearing getting worse. She a great yoga teacher and she's taking beautiful nature pictures. If you want to see and buy some of her stuff, you can visit her on Etsy. She's a wonderful person, one of those that I probably would have never known if blogging and social networking wasn't around. I am so moved by Kitty's inner beauty and by the fact that people like her exist and they are around us. One more time, social networking is heaven for us the socially anxious.

Anyway, her post made me remember the scare I used to have about my eyes for years. Especially by the end of January I was having huge issues with my eyes: I was unable to read at night and had big problems during the day. My eyes get very tired and it seems to be related to natural light: it seems to be better in the summertime than during the winter. The new more efficient halogen lights might also be helping.

In addition, this year I have eyeglasses with progressive lenses which allow my eye to pick whatever position works best at a certain time. My dioptries keep growing every year, so I imagine that one day I might need some sort of operation or even become blind. Fortunately this doesn't seem so close this year, so I am just enjoying it.

I read about a book a week for the last month or so. I love them all. And I want to write about them all, but never get the time... Hey, I got to go start a new book!

For now, I am grateful for my eyesight and wish Kitty all the best!

People in my life

2009-01-11T06:13:00.003-05:00

I visited a friend yesterday and met her nice husband. This gave me a moment of reflection on how my life changed over the last couple of years. Two years ago, I thought I only have my husband close. I looked at anyone with suspicion: I was scared of being cheated, abandoned, ignored. I was scared to leave my kid with anyone. I only trusted one or two doctors.

Now I have people and friends in my life. I have friends to share my fears and worries, and brag about my achievements and joys. I have people that I am comfortable leaving my kid with at anytime (granted a three years old can take care of himself better than a one-year old, but anyway). I'm not scared of trusting my house with some people: what's the worst that can happen, and I know they are nice anyway, especially if I treat them nicely. My work world has been populated with people with their lives, desires, achievements and failures, were before I just saw work and "resources" that could get sick, wanted vacations and free days and all sorts of other stuff that was in the way of work.

My guard was way up and I let it down. And I started seeing a lot of beautiful interesting stuff behind it. Love and you will get love, trust and your trust will be answered, but most importantly, from Lance Armstrong: "I don't take anything for granted, this way anything that happens is a miracle"

There are great people out there, just give them the chance to show you. They are in many ways just like you, and in many other ways quite different. Accept the differences and accept them for what they are.

I'm twittering

2009-01-08T19:19:00.002-05:00

I am yogileana on Twitter.

I like Twitter for little thoughts. I don't want to throw in everybody's face that I deal with social anxiety and I want to talk about things that might be irrelevant to the SA people.

I will load all my posts into Twitter, so if you want to follow me there go ahead.

I like the fact that all messages should be at most 140 characters. This will help me become a better writer, I think!

If you wish to vote for me

2009-01-08T12:46:00.002-05:00

Here's the link for voting for the best patient blog. Please consider voting for me.

http://medgadget.com/2008bestpatient.html

I must admit that I could not vote. The system never got my vote in. I tried to vote for Duncan Cross that I nominated, but it never registered. I tried in both Chrome and Internet Explorer browser, from different locations. Considering the large numbers, I suspect it's a me issue and this humbles me deeply as I am building web applications, and still have no idea what could be wrong.

Geek Doctor

2009-01-05T18:45:00.004-05:00

Oh, wow! I was nominated in the finalist list of best patient blogs! That's pretty neat! Here's the list of finalists. The voting starts tomorrow. If you like this blog, feel free to vote for me.

I have mentioned John Halamka's blog before, but I never discussed it in detail. I read it since the first post and I did not miss one entry in more than an year. I started reading it because I want to work in IT in a hospital and John is the CIO in Paul Levy's BIDMC hospital. As expected, I learned a lot about IT in healthcare, but the blog goes so much further.

I started by being critical and resistant. What, open source used extensively in a large organization? You mean Oracle is not your main database? You don't think that relational databases are the best databases? You buy and build?

Then I just listened and learned. And John's blog was a huge support for me in my yoga journey. I hang out with people that were so different than the world I'm living in: stay at home moms, and teachers and athletes and artists... was this meditation thing something that rational people do? Like programmers, engineers, doctors? And then he started the series of personal, lifestyle entries on the blog on Thursdays. After a series of posts that demonstrated that this is one of the most rational people I ever met. While not practicing yoga himself, a lot of the subjects John is covering have to do with stuff that I studied: treasuring each moment, keep the emotion in the present, respect your personal and family time as separate from your work time, and most important: accept everybody, even if you don't agree, or especially when you don't agree... there might be something to learn in your resistance.

John' blog was nominated a a finalist in the Medgadget awards for Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog. I for one will vote for him. And will keep reading his blog. Thanks for writing!

I'll soon have a blog pot about a few books that I recently read that I found very enlightening. Two of them were recommended on John's blog.

2008 and 2009

2008-12-31T18:45:00.002-05:00

I disappeared for a while in a "holiday anxiety". I suspect this is not unusual to those of you that struggle with the same issues as I do. I decided to go with the "presence is the best present" this holiday and to share time and love instead of buying presents and sending cards, but I did not tell anyone and when the time to give love came, I just got ashamed of going outside the box and avoided it all.. This is too funny and a good lesson that if I will try this again, I need to better plan who do I send love to, when and how, because picking up the phone and calling is not my thing apparently! It's all behind now and next year there will be a new holiday season.

2008 was a great year. It was an year of change. I came to terms with my anxiety, I learned to love my job, I learned to be a better mother, wife and person, and to be nicer to myself especially. I got someone to help with the household and this was major: because I learned what it takes to work with someone successfully, mostly trust and the knowledge that everything will be well. She is a wonderful person too, but I saw that it is possible to find wonderful people. This freed my time for myself, and my family. My health was so and so, but I learned that I am not my diseases and I learned to put my health in the background. I also learned that I am the best person to take care of myself and it is my responsibility to figure out what my body needs or doesn't need.

What about 2009? More and more I realize that I want to write, I need to write, and it is also my best way to communicate with others. So I hope I'll find a way to incorporate more of that into my life. I want to continue to add more exercise and fun into my schedule. And continue to work on my health and my relationship with my family and others. I think it will be another even better year.

Happy New Year!

Who, me? Self-centered?

2008-12-20T14:57:00.002-05:00

This post might come as an unexpected and unpleasant surprise to some of you. It might even push some away if you haven't yet seen this idea. The first time I read about it, I was uncomfortable and resistant, but thinking about it some more, I realized it is so true.

This condition might look like we are caring a lot about others, but we mostly are caring about others in relationship to US: do they like ME, do they think I'm looking good, writing well, doing the right thing? We are quite self-centered. We bask in the happiness that someone likes us, we are anxious about saying the right thing or saying anything or not blushing, or not sweating. We fear that the wrong look or attitude might push some away. It's important for us to be called someones best friend, the best employee, the nicest person, etc., and we're desperate if someone else becomes the employee of the month, the best friend, etc.

I want to be nominated in the 5 best patient blogs, but I do not want to win, this would be disastrous next year when I might not even be nominated anymore. I will probably quit before that happens - running away is better than being demoted. I think this is actually a common trait, probably most people think more or less about things this way, we just take it to extreme.

So, what to do about it? It's ironic, but the first thing to do is to accept that we are normal, OK, looking good enough, acting OK, saying the right things, and when we don't, just accept that it happens to everyone: we all say stupid things every now and then, we blush at the wrong time, friendships die, relationships end, with or without our help. It's just stuff. And while being relaxed about us, we can now look at others with more compassion and love: see what they really are about, hear them, help them without caring what they think about us. Most people would feel more honesty in this approach and will be more attracted to us.

We need to relax, and we'll start seeing a bigger picture and doing things to help everybody and we will be appreciated even more. And if not, it just happens, just move on. We all are just fine and normal.

Trying to help

2008-12-17T18:44:00.002-05:00

My world has changed a few days ago. One of our acquaintances, a young guy just out of college, died from an overdose of medication. He was battling depression for a long time and addiction more recently. Over the last couple of months his family and friends (my husband included) tried an intervention on him. Everybody tried their best, but in the end none of this worked. Maybe I, probably just like everybody else around him, feel a little bit of guilt. As it happens he was one of the nicest kindest guys I ever met.

I knew about his depression, I heard that he feels worthless maybe an year ago. And I just listened and didn't do anything at the time. So I am doing something now. I am doing it for any of the guys out there that might be depressed and feeling worthless. I am doing it in the hope that someone will understand that their perception that they are worthless is just that: a perception. That depression and any other mental health issues can be treated and resolved, that the stigma is not as huge as it seems, that opening up is possible and helpful. I am working to get this blog more popular. It's not about me anymore.

It feels like for me increasing my self esteem was the solution. But there was so much work into this, and I was a successful professional: my husband, my therapist, a successful profession, a healthy child, all my blogging friends and all my friends that supported me even after finding out that I have social anxiety. And the cherry on the top: yoga with their concept that the divine is in each of us. And finally I got it: I am worth something.

If you hear someone repeatedly mentioning how they are no good, then it's time to act and talk to them. If you think you are no good, go get help. We are all worth for living a decent life.

Medgadget 2008 awards

2008-12-16T22:02:00.002-05:00

I nominated myself for a 2008 patient blog award. I mostly did it to increase the readership of my blog. There are two kind of people that might be interested:

The ones that have no idea that they have social anxiety; they land here by accident, figure out that what's been bothering them for a lifetime has a name and then get help and relief. One visit alone can help these people.
The ones that like my writing, and find an inspiration in my success story; they read the whole thing and subscribe and come back for more.

For newcomers, I hope you find answers and inspiration in this blog, for subscribers, please go to MedGadget, read these blogs and cast your votes.

FYI, I also nominated another blog that I have been reading over the last month or so. Duncan Cross has Chrohn's disease and writes about health care. His point of view is original and well-thought. It brought me a great balance to read a chronic patient's point of view instead of only reading the doctors/hospital administrator's point of view. Extremely refreshing and well-written.

I'm not asking you to vote for me, just to consider these blogs among others!

New and old visitors

2008-12-07T16:51:00.002-05:00

I want to salute two visitors.

One of them came in two days ago and submitted a comment on my emotional immaturity post. Apparently he found me by searching emotional my entire life. He bumped into my blog and figured it might be social anxiety. He might never come back, but I am happy that this blog is here to be helping people like him. I remember searching for what's wrong with me and reading my first book about social anxiety...

The other visitor... I only see him through statistics counter. As far as I know the visitor never submitted a comment. (S)He comes in every three-four weeks from Paul Levy's blog. (S)He's from Massachusetts General Hospital. I counted 17 visits now, but with changing IPs it could be more than that and it could also be someone else. Thank you for your quiet presence and for coming back. When I see the familiar entry I feel like greeting an old friend.

Challenges benefits

2008-12-02T18:49:00.003-05:00

Paul Levy invited me and 30 other bloggers to participate in the blog rally "Engage with Grace". I think the subject is worth the discussion and I might write about end-of-life discussions and options at a later time.

Here I'd like to share my sense of great achievement with a challenge. Paul asked me if I am OK to be interviewed by a reporter for a newspaper article. I accepted saying that I would be more comfortable on email, but that I could do it by phone.

I talked to the reporter and it was fine. I was not as witty as I would have liked and I did not say all that I wanted to say, but I took the challenge and got through this. The article ended up not mentioning me or any blogger other than Paul, so I did not become famous overnight.

But I was so happy afterward, happy to have done this, happy that next time I will feel better about it, happy that I am just normal. I felt powerful. And I realized that without my social anxiety this would have been just another phone call instead of a very pleasant experience.

Instead of dreading what you can't do, take challenges and celebrate all the stuff that you can do!

Engage with Grace

2008-11-25T02:34:00.003-05:00

We make choices throughout our lives - where we want to live, what types of activities will fill our days, with whom we spend our time. These choices are often a balance between our desires and our means, but at the end of the day, they are decisions made with intent. But when it comes to how we want to be treated at the end our lives, often we don't express our intent or tell our loved ones about it.

This has real consequences. 73% of Americans would prefer to die at home, but up to 50% die in hospital. More than 80% of Californians say their loved ones “know exactly” or have a “good idea” of what their wishes would be if they were in a persistent coma, but only 50% say they've talked to them about their preferences.

But our end of life experiences are about a lot more than statistics. They’re about all of us. So the first thing we need to do is start talking.

Engage With Grace: The One Slide Project was designed with one simple goal: to help get the conversation about end of life experience started. The idea is simple: Create a tool to help get people talking. One Slide, with just five questions on it. Five questions designed to help get us talking with each other, with our loved ones, about our preferences. And we’re asking people to share this One Slide – wherever and whenever they can…at a presentation, at dinner, at their book club. Just One Slide, just five questions.

Lets start a global discussion that, until now, most of us haven’t had.

Here is what we are asking you: Download The One Slide and share it at any opportunity – with colleagues, family, friends. Think of the slide as currency and donate just two minutes whenever you can. Commit to being able to answer these five questions about end of life experience for yourself, and for your loved ones. Then commit to helping others do the same. Get this conversation started.

Let's start a viral movement driven by the change we as individuals can effect...and the incredibly positive impact we could have collectively. Help ensure that all of us - and the people we care for - can end our lives in the same purposeful way we live them.

Just One Slide, just one goal. Think of the enormous difference we can make together.

(To learn more please go to www.engagewithgrace.org. This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team)

Opportunities

2008-11-20T20:38:00.003-05:00

It's almost two years since I started this blog, and the online world is so different now than it was back then. What great opportunities for anyone to get to terms with their social anxiety.

Part of it is this huge reference related to social anxiety: blogs, personal health oriented websites, forums, e-books.

And this is not all. You can find blogs about anything. This is great for people that feel isolated and don't feel like they can match anywhere. I found blogs that are a pleasure to read about anything of interest to me: social anxiety, any area of healthcare (doctors, CEOs, IT people, patients, etc.), people that wear glasses, people that do yoga, meditation, zen living, passionate about tribes, and so on. It's amazing!

I think that part of my success with social anxiety is finding people that have common interests and realizing that I'm not alone out there.

Go look for people that share your passions! I bet you'll find enough! Don't miss your opportunities!

Overcoming social anxiety?

2008-10-29T06:28:00.002-04:00

I got a few emails lately from people thanking me about the blog and hoping to follow my steps in overcoming social anxiety. I know I heard this before and I didn't believe it and I know that probably the people dealing with this will feel that overcoming SA is the right way out of their misery, but I did not overcome it. It's still there, every day, every encounter. I just don't beat myself up over it. I'm OK with it and with myself.

I thought that the way out of it was to have at least one close friend, and I tried and I'm still trying to get there. I made a few tries and never quite got to it. Part of it (maybe the biggest part) is that I don't really have time to dedicate to a friendship. Maybe I created this lifestyle to avoid getting to close. It seems to be a pattern either in my choice of friends or in the way I am interacting with them. But that's fine. I just go on and try other people and other ways.

I also hate telephones. They are perfect for getting things done, clarify stuff, setting a meeting, managing an activity and keeping everyone in the loop, but just talking? It seems that anytime I try it, there is a bad signal, there is no return of calls after leaving a message, it's the wrong time, etc. Plus, I like to drive when I'm driving, work while at work, eat dinner with family and spend time with my kid when I'm around. This leaves open the between 9:00 PM and 7:00 AM... who would talk to you then... oh and did I mention that I also like to sleep at night? What a solid argument for avoiding yet another means of interaction!! See? I did not overcome social anxiety. I just accept it as part of who I am. It is my charm!

In conclusion, my advice is to not look for overcoming anxiety, but accepting it. Once you accept yourself for what you are, you become less tense and you do your best in most situations.

Another overview post

2008-10-19T21:28:00.003-04:00

I've been slow to write lately and I would so much love to restart writing. I want to write about life and work, not necessary on this blog, but I'll keep you guys updated once I get started somewhere else. This post is another overview of my journey in beating anxiety.

Educate yourself. The first thing I did was to figure out what's wrong and read a book about it. At the time I realized that I need to figure out what's with me because nobody else can figure it for me.
Find a buddy. Next, I educated and engaged my immediate family in my fight with social anxiety. I think it is impossible to do it by yourself. Either a family member or a friend or even an Internet forum would work for that. You need a buddy.
Find professionals to help. The next step was to talk to my doctor and find a therapist. This part took a long time for me because I was also dealing with a difficult pregnancy.
Identify and stop the emotional dips. When I started therapy, for months and months, we just discussed the latest drama du jour. We wouldn't talk about anything else because there was always some crisis that I was in: work, family, friends, etc. there was drama everywhere. One of the most important things that I did was to drop friends and causes that made me have highs and lows: I stopped talking to friends that were depressed and were pulling me down, I dropped relations that I was too involved in: the kind where you check your email every five minutes to see if there's an answer, I dared to say no to social engagements that were making me uncomfortable. I just gave myself a break! That was a great way to work on SA. Once the main issues out of the way you can tackle issues one by one and take on only how much you can carry.
Add challenges. I am a fighter, I'm always finding something to challenge myself, so this is not a struggle for me. The struggle is to not drop the ideas after the first disappointment. We had parties and I worked on my relationships at work, but the biggest challenge and the most successful was to start writing this blog.
Open up. The person that inspired me to start writing the blog, Paul Levy, was the one person that paid attention to me and had a kind word for me throughout my journey. His fight for transparency in his hospital operation taught me that openness and transparency is the right way to work on my own issues. This was confirmed by Irvin Yalom's book. I told friends about the blog. I never got a negative reaction. Some were just quiet about it, but mostly I got some very friendly feedback.
Ease the guilty feeling. I realized that my worst moments happen when I feel guilty: that I don't talk enough, that I'm too shy, that I'm not doing enough stuff around the house, that I'm not spending enough time with the baby, that I'm not working enough hours. The guilt just paralyzes you and it's useless. Once I gave myself permission to be shy and quiet and nice, and realized that I did spend as much time as I could both working and with the family and that there's not more time than that, things just became easier. I'm shy, so what? I'm quiet, so what? I said a stupid thing! Oh, well, it happens to everyone.
Define your dream. Spend time to think about your priorities in life, what you want to do. Dream big! Write it down, find things that you can do next week to help you get there, collect pictures and articles about it. Simply allowing yourself to think about your dreams will make you feel better, but making progress toward it it's possible too. It's important to know what's meaningful to you and go for it!
Drop the fear. What are you fearful of: What other people say? That you'll lose your money, house, car, retirement money? That you will lose your job? That you will be killed? That you will get sick? That your partner cheats on you? At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. We all will live less than 100 years unless you're really lucky. Money is an illusion. Other people mind about their own business more than about you, and if they mind about you for a minute, they will forget it right away. I've been in that anxiety free land for about a week or two and it was great. I aim to get back there.

I think that's it! This helped me. It's a journey that never ends. I am still working through most of these items. There is no end!

Good luck to all of you!