challenges

I've been seeing so many inspiring stories on emet blogs and forums recently, stories from people who are pushing themselves to confront their fear. It's exciting, and it's been encouraging me to look for ways I can do the same. I have definitely talked a lot on here about the benefits of challenging yourself, about how important it is to get out of your safe "bubble." Yet I am usually at home. Or if I'm not, then I'm in the safest possible non-home place, like an uncrowded grocery store. Not much point in knowing what to do if I never do it.

Half the time I don't even notice the little ways I'm avoiding. The first Hunger Games movie comes out this month. It comes out the day after my birthday, and I really want to see it. Perfect timing, right? But my first instinct was to say no, we can't go that weekend. It will be too crowded. Let's wait a week or two. A few days went by before I realized what had happened. Saying no, planning out "safe" ways to do things, is such a strong habit. That's my first challenge for this month. I'm going to see the movie that first weekend. Maybe it will be really crowded, maybe not. If it is, it's a chance for me to learn to deal with it. Large crowds can't always be avoided. I'm even hoping to someday live in a city again (I'm in a pretty rural area right now), so I know I'll have to be in contact with large groups of people then.

My other challenge is work-related. My boss asked me if I would visit another company sometime in the next month and observe how things run there. I've been asked to travel for my job a few times, and it's usually long-distance travel, sometimes even leaving-the-country travel. I always say no, or worse, I say yes and then slowly back out of it. This time, the place I've been asked to go is about a ten to fifteen minute drive from my house. As convenient and manageable as that is, I still had the urge to say no. And it was clearly just because of anxiety, because I even think it sounds like fun. So I said yes, and now I have to do it. I can't back out of something this easy. I don't know any of the specifics yet of what I'll actually be doing, so I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for several different scenarios. But in general, I'm worried about a social situation where I will be "trapped" and could possibly feel anxious or "sick." Which makes it the perfect challenge for me, since that's the worry that keeps me from doing just about everything.

In a sense, I'm dreading these things. But I also can't wait to find out how well I can handle them. Whatever happens, it will at least show me what I need to work on more. That's how I'm trying to see all these situations, as tiny experiments that will eventually lead to me being able to manage my anxiety at all times. The more I experiment, the more "data" I'll have.