Transparency
August 10th, 2006 by Aaron
I was recently listening to an interview with Elizabeth Lesser, author of Broken Open. In it she talked about how crisis tends to either trigger growth and opening up or leads to falling apart. She discussed what qualities people who learn and grow in the aftermath of a crisis have in common. She said that one of the most important is transparency. Apparently, being able to tell someone about what you are going through seems to really matter in your ability to grow from painful experiences.
She pointed out that many people (most people in fact) tend to carry around a sense of wrongness. Basically, most of us harbor the idea that we are the most screwed up person around and we try to hide it from each other. But actually there is great freedom in admitting how screwed up we feel.
It got me to thinking, as so much does these days, about social anxiety. It isn’t all that hard for me to imagine my social anxiety as a slow burning crisis. And the idea of feeling screwed up and wrong is certainly familiar.
I hide a lot about myself. In part I’m just a very reserved person. But it’s also fear. It’s a mechanism for managing how people see me. The less they know the less they can judge. The less they know the safer I feel.
But since we started this blog, I’ve been talking more openly about social anxiety and my life in general to a handful of people. I’m beginning to believe that it is vitally important that the socially anxious find someone that they can be completely open with.
It certainly isn’t easy. I know I’ve got a long way to go. I’ve been making the effort to talk more but real transparency is something I’ve just never done in my life. I feel like I’m only taking the first steps.
What are your thoughts on transparency? Do you think that social anxiety could be seen as a type of crisis? Could the feelings brought on by social anxiety be used to help trigger personal growth?
Posted in Aaron, Social Anxiety|Subscribe |
Comments Feed|
8 Responses to “Transparency”
Leave a Reply
- Feeds
- Site feed
- Comments Feed
Fatal error: Call to undefined function utw_showweightedtagsetalphabetical() in /home/.offbeat/roelke/anxiousliving.com/wp-content/themes/WhiteClear/sidebar.php on line 106
Mathias wrote on 08/15/06 at 4:37 am :
I think of SA as a fever symptom that tells me there’s something wrong with the way I live my life. Something needs to be changed.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to be as invisible as possible. Been like the ice berg that hit Titanic, everything that matters has been hidden beneath the surface. When I started to open up and talk to people about my problems it was a relief. Only then could things begin to happen.
So being more open is a good start, but it has to be followed up by action.
I’ll never be an extrovert, but I hope to be more transparent in a “what you see is what you get” kind of way. That would indeed be personal growth.
Aaron wrote on 08/16/06 at 2:32 am :
I certainly know the feeling of trying to remain invisible. I’m glad that opening up has been a relief to you. I think the fear of opening up is a very difficult one to overcome. It definately has been for me.
I think in some ways continuing to open up can push us into action. If I begin by being open with the people I am closest to perhaps I can eventually learn to be open with new people or more casual acquaintances. Maybe I can even be a touch more open in social situations.
Like you said, that would be real personal growth. Thank you for the comment.
Cynthia Blue wrote on 08/18/06 at 12:19 pm :
I try to open up too. I’m actually not very nervous about talking about my social anxiety. Actually, I would rather that people know. When I get really anxious, my tone of voice changes, my body posture changes, and I think I come across as rude or odd or snotty or something. If people know it’s just my anxiety, I think maybe they can forgive me more.
Aaron wrote on 08/18/06 at 12:31 pm :
Good point. I’ve been told more than once that I come across as aloof. I’m hoping it’s mostly the anxiety that makes me seem that way.
Gus Farrah wrote on 08/24/06 at 10:27 pm :
Aaron, I see SA right now in my life as a way to “trigger personal growth” as you said, this keeps reminding me to move on in life and do the things I have to do to be better each day, with all the difficulties and pain this brings to us.
I keep thinking about all the people that has been able to overcome difficult moments in their lifes as a way of inspiration for me to keep looking a better quality life.
Thanks for your posts…
Aaron wrote on 08/25/06 at 6:12 pm :
Gus: Sounds like you’ve got a good combination going, reminders to keep working and examples to take inspiration from. Using other people’s triumph over difficulties as inspiration to continue to work on anxiety is a topic well worth exploring. Going to have to keep that in mind. Thank you.
Dave wrote on 08/28/06 at 7:06 am :
I think you’ve hit onto something here. I’ve never really considered it before, but now that I think about it, talking about my troubles always seems to help. It’s sort of like my mind is cluttered with all theses loose thoughts and ideas and feelings, and I have a hard time coming to terms with them because I don’t really understand them. But when I talk to someone about my troubles, it forces me to untangle the mess in my mind in order to explain my feelings in a coherent manner. That probably explains why I’ve found blogging to be so theraputic. It forces me to put my feelings into words, which helps to clean up the mess in my head. Does that make sense?
Anyway, good blog. Glad I found it.
Dave
Aaron wrote on 08/28/06 at 1:02 pm :
Dave: I’ve found blogging about SA to be very theraputic, so that definately makes sense.
I think talking to folks openly about SA both helps clear up thoughts about it and helps me realize the things I’m usually afraid to talk about might not always be as big a deal as I think they are. Though it’s still very difficult for me.
Thanks for the comment.