In the blog-post linked below, the writer discusses, from personal experience, the importance of “choosing oneself,” by valuing oneself independently of others’ judgement. Emotional self-sufficiency and self-worth are, the writer suggests, the path to contentedness. Whilst short on information on the process of overcoming fear, the writer is insistent that taking responsibility and action is vital.
The writer says that she spent 30 years of her life, in the US, trying to find a “home in herself.” Outwardly, she was successful and happy but much of this was a performance to hide her fears and what she describes as an “inferiority complex”: “I put everyone’s approval above my own. I put the party above my own needs. I put everyone else’s expectations above my own for myself. I put everyone else’s likes and dislikes before my own, molding myself to whatever I thought was acceptable. I wanted people to like me, never wanted to appear mean or bitchy, never wanted to be boring.”
What she was missing, she says, was “a deep love and respect for myself.” It is apparent that fear stood in her way – fear of humiliation, shame and rejection if she did not appear a certain way.
Two years of self-discovery lead her to the realisation that perfection was impossible and authenticity was preferable. Though dramatically changed, she describes continued struggles – “Sometimes a hint of social anxiety kicks in, but I breathe and remember the home inside of myself.”
A question remains as to how a social anxiety sufferer is to overcome fear to cease safety behaviours and personas, such as social performances. The writer hints at the importance of “remembering who I am.” This includes allowing oneself to feel how one feels, without self-judgement.
The writer places emphasis on taking responsibility for one’s happiness and life and taking action to change: “Moving your body, moving your home, move move move. Whether you interpret this as exercise or physically moving to another city, even if this means uprooting yourself from everything you have ever know and inserting yourself into a place outside of your comfort zone.”
Self-love includes self-care: “Early nights and early mornings, vitamins, a skin care regime, health, and a relaxation and ease with self. Forgiveness of self, forgiveness of others. Peace within myself. Home.”
Whilst short on information about how the writer overcome her social anxiety and other fears to attain this radical self-love, this blog-post is a useful reminder that authenticity, self-love and attention, self-worth and emotional self-sufficiency are vital to well-being – and they can only be achieved by curtailing fear.
To read the full blog-post, click below.
You want so badly to be a better version of yourself. Somewhere inside of you there is a peace, an ease, a “home” – but you can’t grasp it. You have a laundry list of goals that you attempt to tackle but you constantly fail to maintain the habits needed to achieve said goals and then give up, resorting back to your comfort zone. You feel purposeless, uncomfortable in your own skin. Sometimes you have good days where you finally feel like you’re getting it all together, then BOOM you get off track and fall back into your old ways. You are controlled by your emotions. You have this dread and you feel like a failure, like you’ll never get “there”. You feel like a fraud waiting to be ‘figured out’ or waiting to ‘lose it all’ at a moments notice. You like to do mind-numbing activities because it distracts…
View original post 2,422 more words