Minor victories
Apr. 24th, 2004 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerI suppose this is a somewhat strange thing to talk about, but I decided to talk about anyway.
A few weeks back, I came up with a new form of shielding, and it seems to be helping me. As usual, I will leave it up to others to decide, or debate, whether or not this shielding actually accomplished something real, or whether it was simply a useful tool for me to use to help myself. Me, I don't mind which people think, because it helped me, and that's all that's important.
What happened was this: I was hanging out with a person who made me nervous, though, not for any bad reason. I didn't want to act nervously around this person, and there didn't seem to be any way to change anything to eliminate the nervousness I was feeling. It wasn't like I could say "Could you please stop fondling that gun, while staring at me, and snickering. "
Now, everyone probably the best way to handle this situation. "Be yourself". The trouble is, if you have enough anxiety over issues like this, you, quite frankly, can't remember what "yourself" is.
That's what gave me the idea for using this as a method of shielding.
I imagined a ball around me of a glass like material that was (of course) completely indestructible. It reflected light the way glass does, and I imagined that the lighting was such that, while I could see out clearly, I could see a bit of my reflection inside. And, of course, people could see right through the glass ... I wasn't hiding anything.
I focused on this, thinking of it this way: I could see myself, so I could *be* myself. Other people could see in, But I was blocking out any negative energies from either direction ... either from me leaking out to them, or from them leaking in to me. I was blunting anything that would be bothering me.
Well, it worked back then, and it worked pretty well I think. But, that was just a single person, in a really pretty safe situation. I couldn't count on this, at least not absolutely.
Well, I got another chance to use that form of shielding today. I went to a public ritual, celebrating Beltane, and where I knew, at most, two or three people who might be there. Of those three people, there are none that I feel safe going up to and speaking to.
(If any of those three read this, they should not feel that this is in any way because of anything that they have done. It's simply me ... when I'm in an unusual social circumstance, my tendency will be not to speak to someone unless there's a very well established "right to talk, any time, in any place". It's hard to explain why I feel this way. Part of it comes from having lived a large portion of my life depressed. It seems extremely easy to believe that I am being a burden to anyone, anytime, even though there was no way that I could have known that I was being a burden. So, I simply instinctively avoids taking the chance of being a burden. Which includes not doing so much as "pestering" (read as: talking to) a person.)
Anyway, as near as I can tell, it worked like a charm. Well, I guess it's more truthful say that without the qualifier ... After all, if it worked as far as I can tell, it worked completely. It wasn't a very stressful situation, but, of course, that doesn't matter. I can have anxiety regardless of whether the situation is specifically stressful are not.
I did have a funny situation happen near the end of my stay there. For some reason, I decided that I simply didn't feel like hanging around anymore. I spent probably 20 confusing minutes trying to figure out what was wrong, and the fact of the matter is, it's not that there was anything wrong. I suppose that it would be as if I had heard that two people who I didn't know we're going to be handfasted. It's not that I feel that I have to leave, but I might well feel that this isn't my celebration, and I'd just rather not be there, because I have something else to do.
Anyway, it was kind of humorous, in a way. I was trying to figure out what was wrong, specifically because there was nothing wrong. Usually, when I leave a situation like that early, it's because something has gone wrong.
I suppose that means that I will probably want to stay until the end of the next gathering I go to (and I probably will go to next month's gathering as well). Just as a sort of way to show myself that it is an open choice, to stay, or to go, whichever way I happen to be feeling. And, I suppose, as proof positive that, if, in the back of my mind, I was running away, there was no need to.
A few weeks back, I came up with a new form of shielding, and it seems to be helping me. As usual, I will leave it up to others to decide, or debate, whether or not this shielding actually accomplished something real, or whether it was simply a useful tool for me to use to help myself. Me, I don't mind which people think, because it helped me, and that's all that's important.
What happened was this: I was hanging out with a person who made me nervous, though, not for any bad reason. I didn't want to act nervously around this person, and there didn't seem to be any way to change anything to eliminate the nervousness I was feeling. It wasn't like I could say "Could you please stop fondling that gun, while staring at me, and snickering. "
Now, everyone probably the best way to handle this situation. "Be yourself". The trouble is, if you have enough anxiety over issues like this, you, quite frankly, can't remember what "yourself" is.
That's what gave me the idea for using this as a method of shielding.
I imagined a ball around me of a glass like material that was (of course) completely indestructible. It reflected light the way glass does, and I imagined that the lighting was such that, while I could see out clearly, I could see a bit of my reflection inside. And, of course, people could see right through the glass ... I wasn't hiding anything.
I focused on this, thinking of it this way: I could see myself, so I could *be* myself. Other people could see in, But I was blocking out any negative energies from either direction ... either from me leaking out to them, or from them leaking in to me. I was blunting anything that would be bothering me.
Well, it worked back then, and it worked pretty well I think. But, that was just a single person, in a really pretty safe situation. I couldn't count on this, at least not absolutely.
Well, I got another chance to use that form of shielding today. I went to a public ritual, celebrating Beltane, and where I knew, at most, two or three people who might be there. Of those three people, there are none that I feel safe going up to and speaking to.
(If any of those three read this, they should not feel that this is in any way because of anything that they have done. It's simply me ... when I'm in an unusual social circumstance, my tendency will be not to speak to someone unless there's a very well established "right to talk, any time, in any place". It's hard to explain why I feel this way. Part of it comes from having lived a large portion of my life depressed. It seems extremely easy to believe that I am being a burden to anyone, anytime, even though there was no way that I could have known that I was being a burden. So, I simply instinctively avoids taking the chance of being a burden. Which includes not doing so much as "pestering" (read as: talking to) a person.)
Anyway, as near as I can tell, it worked like a charm. Well, I guess it's more truthful say that without the qualifier ... After all, if it worked as far as I can tell, it worked completely. It wasn't a very stressful situation, but, of course, that doesn't matter. I can have anxiety regardless of whether the situation is specifically stressful are not.
I did have a funny situation happen near the end of my stay there. For some reason, I decided that I simply didn't feel like hanging around anymore. I spent probably 20 confusing minutes trying to figure out what was wrong, and the fact of the matter is, it's not that there was anything wrong. I suppose that it would be as if I had heard that two people who I didn't know we're going to be handfasted. It's not that I feel that I have to leave, but I might well feel that this isn't my celebration, and I'd just rather not be there, because I have something else to do.
Anyway, it was kind of humorous, in a way. I was trying to figure out what was wrong, specifically because there was nothing wrong. Usually, when I leave a situation like that early, it's because something has gone wrong.
I suppose that means that I will probably want to stay until the end of the next gathering I go to (and I probably will go to next month's gathering as well). Just as a sort of way to show myself that it is an open choice, to stay, or to go, whichever way I happen to be feeling. And, I suppose, as proof positive that, if, in the back of my mind, I was running away, there was no need to.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-25 08:18 am (UTC)I know how that feels.
Try assuming that, if someone is in a public space (or, well, a space where there's a lot of socializing going on), and if they don't seem to be tangled up in someone else at the moment, then you have a "right to talk... briefly". Say hello, how's it going, good to see you, and then find an excuse to wander off ("I was just headed for the pool, I'll catch you later" "I'm going to go see what's left on the food table, nice talking to you"). You won't make yourself a pest that way.
I would've said hello if I'd recognized you (I don't think I've seen you in quite a while, and it was a big crowd today).
It was a fun ritual, and I got some studying done before and after. Good food, too. And Stormy got gifts from a couple different people -- I think she's well-liked there :) A good day.