Growing Wings on Wordpress

I have officially made the move to Wordpress.com.  While I was a little worried about it, I have to say I like my new home there. 

Please visit me at the new blog site:  http://dhargeykhandro.wordpress.com/

Don't forget to sign up to receive my posts via email - that is if you like hearing from me.  ;-)

The Social Lesson

In The Beginning

As far back as I can remember, I've had stage fright.  I always feared what people thought of me as I stood up in front of them and tried to speak.  I came very close to fainting once during a school speech - a speech which my partners gave as I squeaked out only a few words.  This fear of "the stage" was a bit of a problem since I was an aspiring musician. 

Eventually, after joining a band, I began playing gigs and forcing myself to get over my fear.  I was nervous through the entirety of the first few shows.  In later shows, I was only nervous before our performance, and further down the road I found myself taking each gig with absolute ease.  The moment we arrived at the venue, I was transformed.  I would visualize myself as confident and outgoing, and somehow this worked for me.  Not only did I fool the crowd; I fooled myself, and as a result my performances were almost always astounding.

Shift Back to Present-Day

Recently, I've become involved with a new business which requires me to be social.  Go figure.  Throughout the years I've acquired quite a range of anxieties, one of them being social anxiety.  In fact, I'm pretty sure it's my worst one.  Making phone calls, to anyone, is especially hard for me.  Perhaps this is my chance to cure the anxiety once and for all.  It is just one of the many lessons I will learn on this new journey.

My contemplation of the topic at hand has led me to think about the various roles we play in our lives.  While on stage, I am a confident, energetic rock star.  When I'm working at the grocery store, I have no problem being socially involved with strangers - whether in person or through the telephone.  But place me back into my house, and the underlying issues arise again.  Basically, I have learned to adapt in certain environments but not in others.  I have become comfortable being the confident, outgoing person when placed in the "correct" scenarios. 

In truth, I have always been a shy introvert.  I've spent about ten years trying to get away from it.  Breaking out of that shell requires some bit of acting.  But I don't want to be an actress in all aspects of my life.  Nor do I want to be an actress forever.  How does one get from acting to being?

Then again, maybe I'm not always acting.  

A Solution

As though it was meant to be, I was tuned into an article on wholeliving.com which said something I needed to hear (and which also relates to this post.)

"How long does it take to write a two-line email to someone who might help to grow your business? Typically people hold this to be a huge task because anxiety wells up in them when they think about putting themselves “out there.” But the reality is that the email itself takes hardly a minute or two to write. If you learn to calm yourself, center yourself, and not magnify the risk involved, you could make significant headway every time you found a few minutes at your disposal."

Wow!  My social anxiety really is linked to my fear of putting myself "out there."  While my anxiety never creeps up over emails, the advice offered above can come in handy when I have phone calls to make.  I already calm myself at times when I must talk to people face-to-face.  So, cultivating that ability with phone calls should be relatively easy.  I'll give it a shot and see how it goes.

As a side note:  The new business I've gotten myself involved in has been taking a bit of my free time.  I've also been diving deeply into my studies.  So, please bear with me while my posts are few and far between.  I'm hoping to pick up the pace again soon.

If you would like to read the article I quoted above, you can do so here:  Using Small Intervals of Time for Creative Work

A Look At Stress

I have been reading a lot about stress and anxiety.  I have a tendency to overly stress about pretty much everything.  It seems to run in my family, which leads me to believe it is a learned behavior.  If that is the case, it should be something that can be overcome, although not without much hard work, knowledge, and persistence.

Stress, in animals, only occurs during dramatic, life-threatening events.  For humans, it is still a response to danger, but we have taken it even further.  There are stages to stress - The first being fight-or-flight. It is the response we feel whenever our danger receptors are initiated.  This is a natural reaction.  Although, once you pass this first stage and still feel yourself stressing to the point of exhaustion (which is the last stage), you are no longer in the natural state of things.  When a pack of animals is attacked, they feel stressed and begin to flee (or fight if they feel powerful enough).  Once the danger has passed, they can be found licking wounds and tending to their loved ones before calling it a day.  They move on from the situation and resume their daily ways.

The stress we encounter in our day-to-day lives is brought on not by danger but by change.  Some people adapt quickly to change while others (like myself) need time to adjust.  I am a creature of habitual routine.  If something interrupts my patterns, I don't know what to do.  I freeze in place while my thoughts begin to race.  Sometimes I even rant and rave - similar to the temper tantrum of a toddler.  If I can get through the initial shock with a little help from positivity (this happens occasionally), I actually adjust quite quickly. 

The thing about stress is it's always there.  The way to overcome it is by taking action.  When I am stressed because I have too much to do, I take steps to get as much done as possible, leaving less important tasks for a later time.  This helps me to feel at least a slight sense of accomplishment.  The feeling of fulfillment then helps me to release my stress.  If the feeling of accomplishment isn't enough to take away the anxiety, there are a few other things I do to gain a sense of relief.

• Listening to music

The greatest thing about music is that you can use it while doing pretty much anything - or nothing.  You can put on some headphones and lie down in the grass, or you can pump the volume on the stereo while doing your housework.  There has never been a time when music didn't move me in some way.

• Meditation

I don't always use meditation in its best form.  In fact, to be honest with you, I haven't fully meditated in probably a year or longer.  However, I do take brief moments every day to meditate on the moment.  Usually I will go outside and focus on the sounds of the birds chirping, the feeling of the breeze traveling across my skin or the way the trees look in the sunlight.  When you take time out to focus on the moment, it reminds you that stress is not something that was brought to you. Rather, it is something inside that you can control.

• Exercise

While I have yet to begin a more strenuous exercise routine (I am the worst procrastinator), I have found the simplicity of taking a walk to be a great stress reliever.  Not only can it bring you back to the moment but sometimes the movement will help to slow down the racing thoughts.  I do, on the other hand, believe a regular exercise routine is a key to opening the door of calmness.  I'm in the process of setting something up for myself.  Perhaps I'll blog about it at a later time.

• Hobbies

This is the greatest point for me.  Get creative!  Making music, writing, painting, gardening or whatever might please you helps to diffuse situations which bring on anxiety.  This is the best choice when you find yourself stressing over something which you have no control over. 

Scientific studies show that overwhelming amounts of stress can lead to various physical problems.  Society finds more and more ways to stress us out.  In order to maintain a healthy lifestyle in a world full of anxiety, we must find ways to cope.  Each person is different.  Explore all the options, experiment and find what works for you.

Let's find relief!

Find Your Passion

Your passion is that which makes you feel better about your life.  It gives you a sense of purpose.  It brings relief in times of pain.  You can have many passions or you can have only one.  But without passion you are a lost, wandering soul who may never find the meaning which you seek.

I've watched people wallow in misery because they lost their motivation to find peace and balance.  They forget they have things that take away the pain, even momentarily.  Positive things.  Instead, they feed their addictions as a means to escape.  These addictions take on many forms (not just the typical idea of drug and alcohol addictions,) as we all face it in some way.  I try to offer help, but I know they can only help themselves.  I cannot completely understand their pain, as I can barely understand my own.  Addictions make it easy to ignore the pain we endure at the hands of the world.  Rather than learn to work through it, we run away every chance we get.  I know I am guilty of this more often than not, but it's important for us all to break through!

What is your passion?  Do you love one or all of the arts like I do?  I'm quite the dabbler.  I like to try anything artistic or crafty, though there are only a handful of which I consider myself skillful enough to use often.  Maybe you are more left-brained than I and enjoy more rigid, factual tasks.  While I enjoy working with numbers and money, it is not something I feel brings balance to my life.  Even something that seems simple, such as bird-watching or even gardening, could be a passion.  No matter your choice, the outlet is a great way to feel grounded in who you are.  It is the best way to create joy in a life full of chaos.

The world is full of suffering.  You can only try to get through each moment with some sort of fascination in life.  Otherwise, you will spend each moment awaiting death.  Everyone has their drive.  If you can't seem to pinpoint yours, go try something new and interesting.  It just might be the thing you're missing.

The Death of My Car

On the morning of February 3rd, I was having my usual Thursday at work - trying to accomplish too many tasks in too short a time.  The phone rings, and I am the one to answer.  All I can hear is my fiance's tone of voice screaming and crying.  It was the most dreadful sound and made me shudder with horrific thoughts of what might be happening.  Another woman - a concerned citizen who was staying to take care of my fiance and our son - got on the phone to tell me there was an accident.  Someone had run a stop sign, hitting our car on the corner of High and Grier.

I immediately hung up the phone and ran into the office.

"I have to go...  I have to go NOW.  There was an accident."

I burst into tears as a coworker helped me grab my things and told me to remain calm, something I have a hard time doing most days anyway.

It only took us two or three minutes to get to the scene.  Ugly.  It was so ugly.  I ran across the street toward the crowd of people, almost falling on my ass because of a patch of ice I neglected to see.  My fiance was strapped to a board, surrounded by paramedics who kept telling me to back up.  After calling one of them a few choice names out of frustration, I turned around to find my son's car seat - covered by blankets and protected by a stranger - the woman I had spoken to on the phone.  I pulled back the blankets frantically to see his big eyes staring up at me in shock, not a scratch on him.

After an ambulance ride to the hospital and a couple hours of routine tests, my family (and neighbor who was a passenger) is banged up and bruised - emotionally and physically - but they are okay.  My car, however, did not fair so well.  It is in no way drivable.  Totaled.  So, now that I was worried less about my family's well-being, I had to deal with the stress of having no vehicle.  On top of this, I had to face my fear of confrontation.  Calling an insurance company that owes you, knowing they might try to fight it, is a tough task for me.  I know, I know - I shouldn't worry about something unless I encounter it.  Well, after days of worry, frustration, and anger (trying to get a hold of the guy to no avail) I finally overcame my obstacle.  The situation is not yet over, but a weight has been lifted just by speaking to the insurance agent.  And, I would like to mention, he was very kind to me.  Remember my last post about judgment?  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've been judging this poor guy negatively for two days.  It's amazing what one fear can do to your way of thinking.

I'm hoping the dust will settle soon.  It's been a rough week, but it is one full of lessons for me: 

• My need to overcome this fear of confrontation

• The ability to take help from others (letting go of pride)

• The importance of family

• Compassion for those who have harmed me or my loved ones 

The last one has come and gone from my mind a few times since this whole ordeal started.  It is really hard to have compassion when you feel you have been wronged.  It is especially hard when this wrong-doing affects your family.  However, put simply, shit happens.  I don't know anything about the woman at fault for the accident, and I will not hold a grudge toward her.  I am just thankful my family walked away from it.  That is more important than anything. 

To all of you out there, please be careful on the roads.  You never know who is going to run a stop sign, rear-end you, or swerve toward your vehicle for whatever reason.  And remember, if you are the one running the stop sign, or any number of other things, you could be creating a whole world of hurt for others involved.  Many people don't pay enough attention when they get behind the wheel.  Let my situation be a stepping stone for you to change your driving habits, even if it only means watching out for other drivers.