#1 I am afraid to write this and that’s the goal
I have a PhD in psychology and I’m afraid of people. For most of my life, I would have been terrified to admit this even to my closest friends. But here I am. At the moment it feels daunting, but I know better than to give in to this feeling.
I write about this topic, because first, I fear it, and second, it holds the greatest potential for growth in my life. And since the most personal might be the most universal, if we follow the words of eminent psychologist Carl R. Rogers, it might hold some potential for your life, too.
Fear, anxiety, and worries are long-time companions of mine. That gives me an insider perspective. But they’re not just my companions. Most people are afraid often and of a multitude of things. Negative thoughts spin around in our heads. Our minds wander off the here and now and ponder past events or play simulations of our future.
There are more and less obvious fears and some are more widely accepted or expected than others. On one side we have existential threats and terrible tragedies, the fabric of human suffering and trauma. Cancer, losing a loved one, war, or death. On the other side there are trifles, everyday worries that hold our minds hostage despite their negligibility. But regardless of their seeming significance, they’re all equally real in our mind. It’s easy to judge someone else’s fear. It’s just a little spider. And much more difficult to acknowledge it honestly.
Fears small and big
There are more and less obvious fears and some are more widely accepted or expected than others. On one side we have existential threats and terrible tragedies, the fabric of human suffering and trauma. Cancer, losing a loved one, war, or death. On the other side, there are trifles, everyday worries that hold our minds hostage despite their negligibility. But regardless of their seeming significance, they’re all equally real in our minds. It’s easy to judge someone else’s fear. It’s just a little spider. And much more difficult to acknowledge it honestly.
In my case, social anxiety is at the forefront. It follows me whenever I meet new people, attend social gatherings, date, talk to strangers, colleagues, bosses, and even family and friends. I do most of these things much less than the average person.
“Courage isn’t charging into a machine gun nest. Courage is not caring what other people think.”— Naval Ravikant
And yet, we so often do care about what others might think. As social creatures, we evolved to care about what those around us might think of us because we depend on them; we need other people to survive.
The only way out is through
I learned that the only way out is through, that avoiding leads us further away from growth and change. Each time we avoid, we’re running ourselves deeper and deeper into the ground and changing course becomes increasingly difficult.
Instead, we need to face our fears, move towards them, experience them repeatedly, inoculate ourselves. Susan Jeffers titled her book in the words of a helpful mantra: Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Despite this knowledge, I’ve mostly experienced fear and then simply avoided. No tackling. I want to do that here out in the open. Learn, experience, grow. With every post and every reader, I move towards fear. The fear of rejection, the fear of being an impostor, the fear of wasting my time and that of others.