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Old 07-13-2011, 08:35 PM   #2 (permalink)
James81
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I remember when i was younger how I would shy away from people, how I'd literally SWEAT if the attention was thrown on me, how I about half stuttered and stammered, my hands would shake, anything if the attention of a group (or strangers) was on me. I spent a couple of years in high school (freshmen and sophomore years) holed in my room every night watching tv or playing guitar or reading because I just didn't want to deal with the extreme anxiety I had in certain social situations. (I didn't even realize I HAD anxiety back then...I thought that i was just a shy, nervous guy who lost his breath whenever an attractive girl would speak to me, or one of the "cool people" paid attention to me.)

In other words, I had a pretty extreme case of anxiety (without knowing what it was) which turned me into a bit of a hermit and an introvert which led to a good decade or so worth of depression.

And now I am getting in front of classrooms and teaching, talking to total strangers when I go out, and able to make a lot of people laugh. I wouldn't sit here and say that I'm EXTREMELY outgoing (I'm not...not the life of the party or anything like that), but compared to where I WAS and where I am now, I see how far I've come and have grown.

Nowadays, I notice, there are only traces of those previous anxiety symptoms left. I still get the shakey hands, and I can lose my breathe when thinking about standing in front of a class. But once I get into it and start doing it, all that stuff seems to fall away and I become this charismatic teacher. It's kinda like a role I'm auditioning for, and I believe I'm really gonna get the part soon.

So, to answer your question, YES. With a big ole heaping dose of ABSOLUTELY! It doesn't happen overnight. (That's something to realize NOW, because you aren't going to move beyond this in one day, a week, or perhaps maybe not even a year. It could take a lot of time, and growth experiences, and facing your fears, and moving beyond internal gunk...before you get there.)
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