Looking back at my younger self, one of the most significant fears that keep me anxious and isolated was the fear of looking like a fool. My desperate need to avoid embarrassment meant that I didn’t engage with people. Loneliness and the fear of ridicule made me kept me inside my shell. Sometimes when I […]
Zen Buddhism: philosophy of Bewilderment
In my quest to understand Zen I thought like many people that there was a truth you had to understand or an answer to grasp. I learned just how wrong I was and in doing so learned what Zen and Buddhism offers us. Zen does it’s thing by undermining peoples expectations, destroying their sense of […]
Social anxiety is not just negative thoughts
In some ways, I feel I have made a mistake in dealing with my Social Anxiety. I did my best to cope with it on my own. I dismissed both the disease and its effect by not believing I deserved happiness. My sensitivity and anxiety was just something I had to live with, a flaw […]
Is Social Anxiety more a habit?
Am I anxious just because I’m made this way or is it because I learned to be this way? (at least in part) Whilst some of us are predisposed towards anxiety (Sensitive types are like Orchids) I can’t help feel that in some way I learned to be anxious. I feel that for many chronic […]
Highly Sensitive People and Love
One of the biggest things that helped me with anxiety is learning I’m a Highly Sensitive Person. Before this, I was overwhelmed by noise, activity, my emotions, sensations such as hunger and muscle tension. I thought of myself as an anxious person, a flawed individual with nothing to offer. After learning I have a disposition […]
3 Ways to look at negative thoughts
In my own history of anxiety, I’ve unnoticed come at the problem from different directions. One was through logic and reason, another through insight and awareness. Now as an artist it’s imagery and metaphor. It made me reflect on the different ways we relate to and cope with our hopes, fears and worries. In the […]