Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Then he called. Prayer answered. All’s well, he says, except one thing. His cock won’t reach across four states into my ass. Things are funny and good again, for a few hours. And I don’t tell him just how difficult things are for me. Never told him. Ever. Why would I? Reality was oozing in anyway, but why open the door wide? Another time I consulted with a friend, afraid that after his three-month absence he wouldn’t return to me as before. My friend laughed: “Two-hundred and sixty-something ass-fucks and you need more evidence?” The only one that counts, I explain, is the next one. And I am dead serious. I then explored a sex and love addiction twelve-step program, went to a few meetings, and read the textbook. From its point of view—which I tried adopting for a week or so—he is my drug, I am an addict, and abstinence is the beginning of recovery. This information was horrifying—my situation was an illness! And comforting—I could follow their plan to heal from this illness, in the company of similarly sick people, and get all the support I wanted. But I was assailed by doubts. When is it love and when is it addiction? Did I, once again, want to pathologize myself, especially after my hard-won sexual liberation? Did I wish to regard the great opening of my heart and ass as a problem to be solved rather than a gift to be honored? Did I wish to view this flawed, flesh-and-blood man as nothing but a projection of my own illusions, obsessions, conflicts, and screaming sexual desires? This felt like a limited perspective. Besides, the first thing a sex addict must do is to stop having sex. I’d suffered celibacy in my ten-year marriage; was I now going to choose it voluntarily? The textbook had a whole chapter on just what hell to expect from withdrawal—I found little solace in it. It would be hell indeed to withdraw from loving whom I loved. Perhaps this was not the pain of an addict in the grip of disease but simply the pain of a woman in love confronted with the loss of her beloved. (When I told A-Man, much later, after #270, that I was “addicted” to him, he looked highly amused and responded without missing a beat, “You damn well better be.”) There were other disincentives to “recovery.” The meetings were mostly attended by men with a lot of compulsive-masturbation and Internet-porn obsessions. I imagined their computer monitors stained with crusty semen drips and their sexual fantasies running wild as they shared their distraught and ambivalent hopes of abstinence. It felt dangerous to be an attractive woman in their presence. Then, at the end of one meeting, a reforming addict held my hand with just a little too much sympathy and I never went back. My problem was love; his was lechery.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Once we feel threatened, we lock in and see threat everywhere. It makes sense—the rabbit keeps an eye out for the fox at all times. But it costs us. To illustrate, look around you and scan for things that are blue. The blue sky, your blue jeans, perhaps a bluebird outside or a blue book on your shelf. Done? Okay, now try to recall what you saw that was red. Exactly. When our attention is directed elsewhere, we miss out. There are probably plenty of red things around you, but since you weren’t attending to them, you didn’t see them. So it is with threat. When we selectively zoom in on turned backs and grumpy scowls, we miss the nodding heads and smiling faces surrounding them. Ah, faces. We particularly find threat in faces. Pictures of angry and disgusted faces have been used in innumerable social anxiety studies to send participants’ threat-o-meters spinning. Even smiling faces get interpreted as a threat to a socially anxious brain. And while it might make sense to avoid angry faces, avoiding smiling faces doesn’t seem useful to anyone. But a research group in the Netherlands led by Dr. Mike Rinck of Radboud University Nijmegen created an ingenious method of training a socially anxious brain to feel comfortable with smiling faces. In the study, Rinck and his colleagues showed participants pictures of faces on a computer screen and equipped them with a joystick. Pulling on the joystick zoomed in on the face, making it grow until it abstracted and disappeared, while pushing on the joystick zoomed out on the face, shrinking it until it vanished. Enlarging the face mimicked approach, while pushing away mimicked avoidant retreat. Over hundreds of trials, half the participants were instructed to pull a crowd’s worth of smiling pictures toward them, while the other half pushed the pictures away, shrinking them until they disappeared into blackness on the screen. Joystick pull by joystick pull, the participants who pulled the smiles toward them, the researchers hoped, would rewire their brains to see smiling faces as just that—friendly faces safe to approach. To test whether the training spilled over into real life, the team asked each participant to give a one-minute speech on camera, plus they were told their video would be evaluated on attractiveness, friendliness, competence, and more. In the face (pun intended) of impending judgment, the group who had practiced approaching smiling faces was less anxious (not to mention happier) after the speech than the group who pushed smiling faces away. In short, it worked. Of course, we don’t travel the world armed with a joystick that allows us to push unwanted sights away and pull others close (though someone should totally invent that). So how to adapt the findings of the lab to the real world?

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  In the early days of humanity, banishment meant certain death. The Bible, for example, is filled with stories that end in the punishment of exile, of a wrongdoer being “cut off from his people.” Being left alone to fight off the jackals was the ultimate punishment. Therefore, what could be more useful than a cognitive system that keeps us from being thrown out in the cold? These days, it’s easiest to see the function of exclusion in circumscribed, tightly knit communities where there is a clear distinction between “us” and “out there.” The Amish, for example, call it shunning. If you have transgressed and are shunned, all social contact with you is ceased until you confess your error. Others will neither eat with you nor speak with you. As an Amish leader in the PBS documentary Shunned neatly sums up, “If we lose obedience, we lose the church.” But modern exile is not exclusive to traditionalist religions. It happens officially in sports: Pete Rose, Donald Sterling. It happens unofficially in politics: Anthony Weiner, John Edwards. It is litigated in business: Jeffrey Skilling, Bernie Madoff. And even today, despite on-demand potable water and online grocery delivery, we all still need the group to provide the necessary intangibles of community and love. Speaking of love, a little bit of social anxiety makes us a better mate: more aware, more thoughtful, more cognizant. Now, you might be thinking, Wait a minute. Social anxiety makes me act all weird and awkward. It’s basically a mate repellent. I hear you. Social anxiety doesn’t feel useful when you’re making awkward small talk on a first date, but in Darwinian terms it’s the cat’s meow. Social awareness and behavioral inhibition are such useful traits in maintaining harmony and security that to Mama Nature it’s worth the risk of sometimes going overboard. After all, this is Darwinism, and reproduction always wins out. The awkwardness of social anxiety may be uncomfortable, but in the grand scheme of things it’s a small price to pay. Our genes have a greater chance of getting passed on if we have a highly sensitive social smoke detector. A false alarm—detecting social threat when there is none—doesn’t cost us anything genetically, whereas missing a true social threat means we get thrown to the wolves and our genetic lineage meets its lip-smacking end. In other words, social anxiety triumphs as an evolutionary advantage because the costs are low and the benefits are high. To sum it all up, social anxiety has stuck around through the millennia because evolutionarily it buys us more than it costs us. It keeps social groups running smoothly. It ensures we remain part of a group, which, even in the age of Seamless and Amazon Prime Now, is necessary for companionship and belonging. And the self-awareness, empathy, and consideration it confers make us a solid long-term partner, which ensures our genes are passed on.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Whether we’re feeling social judgment online or in the real world, we find ourselves doing one of two things: avoiding or enduring. Unlike most psychological jargon, both these terms mean exactly what you think. Avoidance is the equivalent of sticking our fingers in our ears and singsonging, “I can’t heeeeear you!” Avoidance can be a lot of work—faking an illness means remembering to have a lingering cough the next day, walking the long but less crowded way around wastes time, and showing up to a meeting at the moment it begins so you don’t have to make small talk takes exhausting precision. Avoidance can be overt: not showing up at the party, letting our calls go to voicemail. But avoidance can be covert, too—we may not even realize we’re doing it. Not making eye contact is the classic. Or we may go to the party but spend most of our time petting the host’s cat or checking text messages on the balcony before sneaking home to watch Netflix and eat a bowl of cereal. But while avoidance offers immediate relief, it’s almost always followed by a bitter aftertaste of guilt, shame, disappointment, or frustration. [image file=image_rsrc2GA.jpg] Enduring, however, is white-knuckling it through an office team-building event, presentation, or wedding reception. God help the well-meaning bridesmaid who tries to pull us onto the dance floor—we would rather stab her with a dessert fork than have to YMCA. Those of us who endure usually get home with jangled nerves, a mysterious stomachache, and sore cheek muscles from continuous smiling. Or we get drunk, but more on that later. Most of us have felt this way for a long time. For 75 percent of people who experience social anxiety, this long, awkward trip all started somewhere between the ages of eight and fifteen, allowing us many future decades to scroll through our phone rather than make conversation. For many of us, it’s as much a part of us as our brown eyes or curly hair. It’s what we remember from Day One. * * * By now, you may have noticed that I say “we.” In academia there’s a saying: “research is me-search.” Many scientists choose their field because their subject matter rings true to them and their lives. The grit researcher bounces back after any setback. The trauma expert survived a life-threatening experience. The ADHD researcher works surrounded by teetering stacks of paper. For me, it is telling that I work at Boston University’s storied Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, or CARD. If anxiety were a religion, CARD would be the mother church and I would be a lifelong congregant.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  The study’s current director, Dr. Robert Waldinger, is a psychiatrist who exudes such tranquility that it’s unsurprising to discover he’s also a Zen priest. In a viral TED Talk, he revealed what decades of Grant Study data have brought to light about what makes a life happy, healthy, and meaningful. He said, “The clearest message that we get from this seventy-five-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.” He continued: “People who are more socially connected—to family, to friends, to community—are happier, they’re physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.” To drive the point home, Waldinger revealed that the men in the study who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age fifty were the healthiest at age eighty. But Waldinger also points out that social connection isn’t just numbers. It’s not quantity. It’s quality. But even more, it’s not the category of social connection that matters—it doesn’t have to mean being married or partnered. Instead, the biggest predictor of a healthy, happy life is the warmth of your relationships. From middle school to middle age and beyond, warmth, defined as being kind and trustworthy, fuels connection. And connection, the Grant Study tells us, in turn fuels not only happiness but also health and longevity. You don’t have to be outgoing, extroverted, confident, or popular. As we talked about in chapter 16, all you have to be is kind. And that’s something you have in you already. Something else you have in you is all the other natural traits that come along with the package deal of social anxiety: your empathy, your ability to listen, your high standards, your conscientiousness. Combine these with the skills and knowledge you’ve gained in How to Be Yourself and you can lean in to the people around you by reaching out. Reach out to new friends, to friends you already have, to family, colleagues, and strangers. Reach out to old and young, to those who are just like you and those who are unimaginably different. Be kind. Be warm. It might change your life. But don’t take it from me; take it from someone else who’s been there: Jim. * * * After Jim had recovered from his pneumonia, he fought his way through eight-foot-high snowdrifts to get to his weekly class at the dance studio. The weather had kept most students stuck at home, so the class was sparse that day. Afterwards, Mayumi approached him with a surprise. A regional dance showcase was coming up in June. After four years of lessons, Mayumi thought Jim was overdue to make his onstage debut. Jim had attended the showcase before, but he had never dreamed of participating. He was happy with his lessons and the Sunday night practice parties. Just the thought of performing made the old anxiety come roaring back, a feeling that had become much rarer and softer over the years but at times like this could still rear its head.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  If it be judged too harsh and difficult to supply from the preceding language the thought, “this was urged,” the most reasonable alternative view is that of Wies. ef al. (1) above). From a purely linguistic point of view this interpretation is perhaps the easiest of all that have been proposed, and if it could be supposed, with Weizs., that Paul would re- fer in this unqualified way to a reason which was, after all, only con- tributory, it would be the most probable interpretation of the passage. oltives TrapeconrAOov KatacKoThcar THY édevOepiay Huav “who sneaked in to spy out our freedom.” The liberty of which the apostle here speaks is, of course, the freedom of the Chris- tian from bondage to the law, which would have been sur- rendered in principle if the Gentile Christians had been com- pelled to be circumcised. Cf. 4% % 4-51, and esp. 51-3 3. That he calls it “our freedom” (cf. buds at the end of v.*) shows that although the obligation of the Gentile to be circumcised was the particular question at issue, this was in the apostle’s mind only a part of a larger question, which concerned both Jewish and Gentile Christians, or else that Paul is for the moment associating himself with the Gentile Christians as those whose case he represents. The Antioch incident (vv.1~4) shows how closely the question of the freedom of the Jews was connected with that of the liberty of the Gentile Christians, both in fact and in the apostle’s mind. Yet there is nothing in his nar- rative to indicate that in the discussion at Jerusalem the free- dom of the Gentile was explicitly considered in relation to any- thing except circumcision. Still less is it to be assumed that the question of the obligation of the Jewish Christians in re- spect to foods or defilement by association with Gentile Chris- tians was at this time brought up. Rather does the expression “that the truth of the gospel might continue with you” sug- gest that at this time the only question raised pertained to the Gentiles, and this is further confirmed by the situation which afterwards arose at Antioch, in which the question of foods and particularly the obligation of the Jews in respect to them ap- pears as one on which an agreement had not been previously reached. Il, 4 83 Tlapercéeyouot is a verb not uncommon in later Greek, meaning literally “to come in alongside,’ but usually (not, however, in Rom. 5?°) imply- ing stealth. See exx., cited by Th.; and esp. Luc.

• From Less (2017)

  There were difficulties, looking back, in the time after Mulhouse. It is hard to know how someone else will travel, and Freddy and Less, at first, were at odds. Though a virtual water bug in our adventures, in ordinary travel Less was always a hermit crab in a borrowed shell: he liked to get to know a street, and a café, and a restaurant, and be called by name by the waiters, and owners, and coat-check girl, so that when he left, he could think of it fondly as another home. Freddy was the opposite. He wanted to see everything. The morning after their nighttime reunion—when Mulhouse malaise and Freddy’s jet lag made for drowsy but satisfying sex—Freddy suggested they take a bus to see all the highlights of Paris! Less shivered in horror. Freddy sat on the bed, dressed in a sweatshirt; he looked hopelessly American. “No, it’s great, we get to see Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Pompidou, that arch on the Champs-Ély…Ély…” Less forbade it; some irrational fear told him he would be spotted by friends as he stood in this crowd of tourists following a giant gold flag. “Who cares? ” Freddy asked. But Less would not consider it. He made them see everything by Métro or on foot; they had to eat from stands, not from restaurants; his mother would have told him he inherited this from his father. At the end of each day, they were irritable and exhausted, their pockets filled with used subway billets; they had to will themselves out of their roles as general and foot soldier to even consider sharing a bed. But Freddy got lucky: Less got the flu. That time in Berlin, taking care of Bastian—the sick man he recalled was himself.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  He tried to replicate his accidental mindfulness the next time he ordered food. This time he was able to see his thoughts for what they were. “Wow, I’m having the thought that whoever answers the phone is going to yell at me for trying to give him my money. That would never happen.” To bolster himself even more, he thought about how he would soothe his young son in the same situation. Changing his perspective this way made him feel concerned and tender, a far cry from the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” attitude he usually used on himself. “Okay, Pranav,” he said. “Everyone gets anxious; everyone has their stuff. You’re working on this; you’re committed to trying.” He sat up a little straighter. “Plus, you can handle feeling awkward for a few minutes. If you survived the last few years, you can make some phone calls. It’s okay to feel awkward as long as you keep moving forward.” Nice work, Pranav. Let’s up the ante. Nelly is a community college student in her mid-twenties who wants to be a clothing designer and is also chasing romance. The last time she headed out to meet a guy in person after meeting online and exchanging messages, she was a nervous wreck. They’d emailed and texted back and forth. He seemed funny, actually paid attention to what she wrote, and, if his picture was to be trusted, was cute. But Nelly hated the whole process. She considered taking a swig of liquid courage before heading out, but didn’t want to show up smelling like Jack Daniel’s. “Not the image I’m going for,” she said. Another part of her image she wanted to work on was her habit of sleeping with guys on the first date because she was worried she didn’t have anything else to offer. The adult sleepover wasn’t the problem, she said, it was that she did it for the wrong reasons. “Dates literally scare the pants off me,” she said. So before her date, Nelly ran herself through Replace and Embrace. First she asked herself what she was afraid of (specify, specify, specify) and discovered a flock of questions running through her head: What if he doesn’t like me? What if he’s disappointed? What if he thinks he’s wasted his time? It’s impossible to argue with questions, so Nelly changed them to statements to make them easier to contend with: He won’t like me. He’ll be disappointed. He’ll think he’s wasted his time. But it was even more than that. In this one first date Nelly foresaw her entire future, and in that future she saw herself alone with nine cats, abandoned by friends long since married. I’ll be alone forever, was her worst-case scenario. Whoa, Nelly. With a thought like that running through her head, no wonder she was anxious.

• From Less (2017)

  The bill comes, and Hans pays with a department credit card, and Less cannot be persuaded a tip is unnecessary, and then they are out on the street, where street lamps shine on black lacquered trees. He has never been this cold in his life. Ulrich stands with his hands in his pockets, swaying back and forth to a private symphony, Katarina clutching him, and Hans looks at the rooftops and says he will bring Less back to the apartment. But Bastian says no, it is the American’s first night, and he should be taken for a drink. The conversation takes place as if Less were not there. It feels like they are arguing about something else. At last, it is decided Bastian will bring Less to his favorite bar, close by. Hans says, “Mr. Less, you can find your way home?” and Bastian says a taxi will be simple. It is all happening very quickly. The others vanish into the Twingo; Less turns and sees Bastian looking at him with an indecipherable frown. “Come with me,” the young man says. But he does not lead him to a bar. He leads him to his own apartment, in Neukölln, where Less—to his surprise—spends the night. The problem comes the next morning. Less, sleepless from his evening with Bastian, sweating out all the alcohol he’s been served over the past twelve hours, still dressed in the black shirt and jeans grease-spotted from dinner, is able to climb the stairs to his building’s exterior walkway but unable to work the lock to his apartment. Over and over he presses the button on the fob, over and over he listens for the chirp of the door. But it is mute. It will not mate. Frantically looking around the courtyard, he sees birds gathering on the balcony of an upstairs maisonette. Here, of course, is the bill for last night. Here is the shame built into living. How did he imagine he would escape it? Less pictures himself sleeping in his doorway when Hans arrives to take him to the university. He imagines teaching his first class stinking of vodka and cigarette smoke. And then his eye falls upon an open window. At ten, we climb the tree higher even than our mothers’ fears. At twenty, we scale the dormitory to surprise a lover asleep in bed. At thirty, we jump into the mermaid-green ocean. At forty, we look on and smile. At four and nine?

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  I didn’t want, afterward, just a memory. Memory would inevitably mar the truth with the vanity of nostalgia and the self-pity of lost desire. I wanted documentation, like a police log, which noted at the time—or moments later, an hour at most—the details of the crime, the crime of breaking and entering my ass, my heart. This record would say: this did happen, this did indeed come to pass in my own life, under my own watch. Besides, if I didn’t write it all down, no one would ever believe it—least of all me. I didn’t believe it two hours after he left my bed. So I wrote it all down to make it last longer. To make it real. Words seemed the only way to mark the spot, to preserve my transitory experience of eternity. This is a testamentary document. Do not miss the message, distracted by the profanity of the act. I am, you see, a woman who has been in search of surrender my whole life—to find something, someone, to whom I could subsume my ego, my will, my miserable mortality. I tried various religions and various men. I even tried a religious man. And then he found me, the agnostic who demanded my submission. “Bend over,” he’d say, gently, firmly. I can hear it now—echoing in the bowels of my being. Ass-fucking is the great anti-romantic gesture—unless of course, like me, your idea of romance begins on your knees with your face in a pillow. Poetry, flowers, and promises till-death-do-us-part have no place in the backland. Ass-entry involves the hard edge of truth, not the soft folds of sentimentality inherent in romantic love. But butt-fucking is more intimate than pussy-fucking. You risk showing your shit, as metaphor and reality. You let a man into your bowels—your deepest space, the space that all of your life you are taught to ignore, hide, keep quiet about—and consciousness is born. Who needs diamonds, pearls, and furs? Those who’ve never been where I have been. The promised land, the Kingdom. If you can let a man ass-fuck you—and only the truly sensitive lover should have that privilege—you will learn to trust not only him but yourself, totally out of control. And beyond control lies God. Humiliation is my greatest devil, but when the eye of my terror is entered, I experience my fear as unfounded. It is through this physical surrender, this forbidden pathway, that I have found my self, my voice, my spirit, my courage—and the cackle of the crone. This is no feminist treatise about equality. This is the truth about the beauty of submission. The power in submission. To me, you see, I have happened upon the great cosmic joke, God’s supreme irony. Enter the exit. Paradise waits. BEFORE THE SEARCH

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  For me, turning down the volume on my intensity is like nothing I’d ever encountered before. When I started writing this book, I dug in with typical perfectionism: I read a stack of books and papers so high it could be measured in feet. I vowed to work diligently to put what I learned into practice. In other words, I approached my type A tendencies as a problem to be vanquished like all other challenges (and yes, I fully see the irony of doubling down on letting go). Previously, if I wanted to change something in my life—start a podcast, get in shape, jump from a research career to writing—I could do it systematically: set a goal, get to work, and check it off. But this time, there were no boxes to check. Checking boxes was actually the problem. Rather than pushing, I had to let things be. Instead of working toward a goal, I had to focus on things that defied goal-setting—like values, enjoyment, and community. Instead of trying to do everything myself, I had to be vulnerable with others. Instead of following my rules, I had to be more flexible. I had to show my process to the world, rife with setbacks and snags, not just the highlighted correct answer at the end. My conscientious inner striver has come in handy for some of the changes. I prioritize sleep and exercise so I’m no longer running on fumes and caffeine. I remember to tell friends about both my screwups and my successes. And yes, I still have a to-do list, but it’s not in unrelenting chronological order anymore, and I look at what I accomplished rather than unhappily laser focusing on what was left undone. I’ve also let go a lot of the push-push-pushing that wasn’t working. I’ve tried to let go of my worst-case-scenario predictions. When my kids overdo it on screen time or sugar, I’ve stopped fretting they’ll be stunted and started remembering they are kids. I still get overwhelmed sometimes, but I’m much more magnanimous to myself when I find myself listening to My Favorite Murder when I’m supposed to be working. I trust colleagues with delegated and collaborative tasks and wonder why I didn’t do this years ago. I am learning to tolerate criticism and listen for what I can agree with rather than just defending my raised hackles. I sought out a “therapist’s therapist” and finally let myself be taken care of rather than doing all the caretaking. In short, I am learning to rest. To reach out. To be real rather than impressive. To do things for enjoyment rather than improvement. To let myself off the hook. To laugh at myself. To show more of the mess. Rather than pulling harder in my personal tug-of-war, I’m learning to drop the rope.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Welcome to the stratosphere of perfectionism. No wonder we can’t breathe. Here we find the fourth myth of social anxiety: I have to perform perfectly. We’ve crossed a line into unrealistically high standards, rigid and relentless adherence to those standards, and, most important, a belief that one’s self-worth is contingent upon the results. Indeed, in a culture that places the standard at “flawless” it’s no wonder we’re anxious. But “perfectionism” is actually a misnomer. Few of us expect our lives—social or otherwise—to be truly perfect. Instead, perfectionism is about never being good enough. As Rosie talked about the conference, as well as other social situations she’d found herself in since then (lab meeting, showing a visiting scholar around the lab, and one excruciating bar hop with her classmates), she let the rules she’d been holding herself to slip. I must always sound intelligent. I should always have something interesting to say. There should never be gaps or silences in conversation. I should always project an air of easy confidence. I am responsible for keeping my conversation partner interested at all times. I have to be entertaining. I have to perform well. I have to make a good impression. I must connect with everyone. People need to like me. If I am not funny or cool, people will not want to be around me. Feeling pressured yet? Perfectionists have unrealistic criteria for success and broad criteria for failure. Just listening to her rules made me feel hopelessly inadequate, which made total sense; I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who could excel under those expectations. In an illustrative study, leading social anxiety researcher Dr. Stefan Hofmann of Boston University investigated the link between sky-high standards and social anxiety. He and his colleagues asked individuals with and without social anxiety to give a speech (just like making people have five-minute conversations, social anxiety researchers also love making people give speeches). Prior to their speech, all participants watched the same video of a person giving an exemplary speech—smooth, articulate, confident. However, the commentary they got along with the model speech varied greatly. In the high-standards condition, they were told, “Truthfully, most people have performed quite a bit better than the individual in the video that you will now watch.” In the low-standards condition, they heard: “Truthfully, most people have not performed quite as well as the individual in the video that you will now watch.”

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Many of us find another way to feel less awkward and less inhibited. Someone really did bottle it, and it really does make billions. It’s liquid courage, survival juice, awesome water. Indeed, for the socially anxious among us, alcohol has many names and, surprisingly, just as many functions. It’s not just a way to feel less inhibited (“Hey, whiskey says I can dance!”) or less awkward (“Must. Grip. Beer bottle. For dear life!”). While the science of the complex relationship between social anxiety and alcohol is still emerging, I’ve encountered at least four types of socially anxious drinkers. Let’s call the first the Pre-Gamer. Meet my client Nia. She’s an administrative assistant with a wide smile. She can handle pretty much anything as “office manager Nia,” but if she has to show up somewhere as “just plain Nia,” like a party or a fundraiser, she needs a drink or two to steady her nerves. “It’s cliché,” she says, rolling her eyes at herself, “but it really does take the edge off.” Nia wouldn’t be caught dead with an actual flask, but she’s been known to fill an empty water bottle with a couple of shots of vodka and stow it in her purse. When she gets to an event, she’ll park her car, slug the vodka down, wait a few minutes, then head in. “It works right when I need it,” she says, “arrival and settling in.” Then there’s Mateo, a boat salesman who loves nothing more than being out on the water. We’ll call him the After-Drinker. He dreads going to trade shows and networking events, but they’re all inescapable parts of his job. He always feels awkward at events and tries his best, as he says, “to act like a normal human being,” but gets stuck afterwards in post-event processing. He can’t help but play interactions over in his head, focusing on jokes that fell flat or the things he wishes he had said or done differently. “I dwell,” Mateo says simply. He doesn’t drink much, if at all, at events, but when he gets home he’ll open beer after beer, trying to drown out his own ruminating. “Basically, I drink when I’m kicking myself,” he says. Then there’s David, the Supersized Social Drinker, who manages a food service warehouse. He’s not much of a drinker, except on the rare occasions when his friends manage to drag him out. Inevitably, he ends up drinking way more than he knows is good for him. “My friends say I’m a unicorn: I’m both a lightweight and a party animal,” he says. “I get really, really social. I admit it’s fun, except for the hangover. I probably wouldn’t have a social life at all if not for Jack and Cokes. I know that’s lame, but if there’s no booze, I don’t go. If I can’t drink, I can’t be social.”

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  But it’s not just the physical signs of anxiety that trip us up; it’s how closely we pay attention to them. You probably know someone who’s the exact opposite of the princess in The Princess and the Pea—someone who can’t tell if she’s hungry or has no idea how he got that bruise. On the flip side, you probably also know someone with a remarkably clear sense of their own internal workings. This person may even be you. This awareness of one’s own body (or lack thereof) is called interoceptive awareness.1 Interoceptive awareness, unsurprisingly, is more sensitive in individuals with any kind of anxiety. Indeed, when those of us attuned to our bodies feel ourselves blush, sweat, tremble, stammer, or tear up that’s when things start to get all meta and we get anxious about our anxiety. Indeed, if our bodies spark the myth of how I feel is how I look, our brains fan the flames. This happens due to a quirk of thought called the illusion of transparency, which is exactly what it sounds like: We think our internal state is visible and will give us away. In normal, non-anxious life, we generally assume that others share our experience. Indeed, most of the time people can see what we see, hear what we hear. But in moments of high anxiety, we seem to forget that what goes on inside our bodies and brains is actually private. We feel our heart pounding, our panic rising, our thoughts racing, and think everyone can see through us like a jellyfish. But when reminded, we remember we are not jellyfish. One study even found that simply telling participants that, hey, guys, there’s this thing called the illusion of transparency, allowed them to strengthen their un-jellyfish-like spines and give a better speech performance. What’s more, when the participants’ speeches were viewed, raters agreed, meaning the reminder didn’t just lead to feeling better—it led to performing better. * * * Okay, now it’s time for a pop quiz! Is your refrigerator handle on the right or the left? What color was your childhood home? Did Einstein have a mustache? Got your answers? Nice work. To answer these questions, you probably conjured up a picture in your head. You “saw” your fridge, the home you grew up in, and Einstein’s mustachioed face. You created and held these images in your mind’s eye. Our brains do the same thing when we get anxious, which perpetuates “how I feel is how I look.”

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  There are so many of us who feel socially anxious that standardized questionnaires have been developed to measure our experience. If you think you may have a touch (or more) of social anxiety, check out the following twenty-five situations cribbed from two widely used social anxiety questionnaires.1 The more items you agree with, the more social anxiety you likely carry with you as you travel through life. 1. I get nervous if I have to speak with someone in authority (teacher, boss, et al.). 2. I have difficulty making eye contact with others. 3. I become tense if I have to talk about myself or my feelings. 4. I find it difficult to mix comfortably with the people I work with. 5. I feel tense if I am alone with just one other person. 6. I worry about expressing myself in case I appear awkward. 7. I get anxious returning an item to a store. 8. I find it difficult to disagree with someone else’s point of view. 9. I find myself worrying that I won’t know what to say in social situations. 10. I am nervous mixing with people I don’t know well. 11. I feel I’ll say something embarrassing when talking. 12. When in a group, I find myself worrying I will be ignored. 13. I am unsure whether to greet someone I know only slightly. 14. I feel uncomfortable making a phone call when others can hear me. 15. I feel awkward or anxious eating or drinking in public places. 16. I feel anxious acting, performing, or giving a talk in front of an audience. 17. I feel uncomfortable working, writing, or calculating while others watch me. 18. I get anxious calling, emailing, or texting someone I don’t know very well. 19. I have difficulty speaking up in class or at a meeting. 20. I feel anxious using a public bathroom (shy bladder). 21. I have difficulty talking to people I find attractive. 22. I feel anxious taking a test or exam. 23. I get stressed and anxious when hosting a party or event. 24. I find it difficult to resist a salesperson or solicitor. 25. I dislike being the center of attention.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that his main contention throughout this chapter and the next is not that he had been approved by the Judean Christians, but that he had from the first acted 5 66 GALATIANS independently. The whole sentence pévoy .. . év éuol is a momentary digression from that point of view. (e) Evidence of his independent apostleship drawn from his conduct on a visit to Jerusalem fourteen years after the pre- ceding one (21-19), Following, as before, a chronological order, the apostle now narrates the circumstances of a very important occasion on which he came in contact with those who were apostles before him. At the outset he calls attention to the length of his absence from Jerusalem, fourteen years, during which, so it is implied, he had had no contact with the Jerusalem apostles; then to the fact that when he went up it was not at their com- mand, but in obedience to divine revelation; then, indicating that the question at issue was then, as now in Galatia, the circumcision of the Gentiles who had accepted his gospel, he tells how he laid his gospel before the Jerusalem Christians, and in a private session before the pillars of the church, James and Cephas and John, since he recognised that their disapproval of his preaching might render of no avail his future work and undo what he had already done.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  This contrariety the apostle adduces as proof (y&ée) of the statement of v.1* (they will not come under the power of the flesh by coming under the Spirit, for the two forces are of precisely opposite tendency), and in turn substantiates it by appeal to their own experi- ence, the reference to their experience being intimated by the use of the second person in the telic clause. The change in point of view from essential contrariety to that of experience is, then, at taita y&e, vée being not explanatory but confirmatory. What condition that is in which the internal conflict described in v.17 ensues is suggested (a) by bd véuoy of v.18 (see notes below), itself apparently suggested by the thought of v.17; (b) by reference to Rom. 6“, where, after urging his readers not to continue in sin, the apostle abruptly introduces the expression bxd véwoy in such a way as 302 GALATIANS to show that, though he has not previously in this chapter spoken of the law, he has all the time had in mind that it is under law that one is unable to get the victory over sin; (c) by comparison of Rom. 713-82, in which the apostle sets forth the conflict which ensues when one strives after righteousness under law, and from which escape is possible only through the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, free- ing one from that other law which, though it can command the good, can not achieve it. “Iva . . . notjte as a pure final clause is to be understood not as expressing the purpose of God, this conflict being represented as a thing desired by him (for neither is the subject of the sentence a word referring to God, nor is the thought thus yielded a Pauline thought), nor of the flesh alone, nor of the Spirit alone, but as the purpose of both flesh and Spirit, in the sense that the flesh opposes the Spirit that men may not do what they will in accordance with the mind of the Spirit, and the Spirit opposes the flesh that they may not do what they will after the flesh. Does the man choose evil, the Spirit opposes him; does he choose good, the flesh hinders him. 18, ei 6€ mvevuare dyeobe, ovx éoré b7O vouor. “But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under law.” In this sentence the apostle harks back for a moment to the point of view of the first part of the chapter, vv.!-®, complementing the statement of v.16, that to walk by the Spirit does not involve subjection to the flesh, by the assertion that to be led by the Spirit is not to be under law.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  13. ‘Tyets yap én’ édevOepia exdnOnte, adedpot “For ye were called for freedom, brethren.” Like v.! this sentence is transitional. It belongs with what precedes in that it gives a reason (Yap is causal) for v.12, but even more significantly in that it is an epitome of the whole preceding argument of the epistle in behalf of the freedom of the Gentile. But it belongs with what follows in that it serves to introduce a wholly new aspect of the matter, the exposition of which begins with dvoy, vets, immediately following vuas of v.2, is emphatic. ‘Ye, whom they are disturbing, for freedom were called.” On éxt, expressing destination, see Th. B. 2 a €; 1 Thes. 47 Phil. 41°. éAevOeeig manifestly refers to the same freedom that is spoken of in v.1, but being without the article is qualitative. On é«AqOnz<, cf. on tov xaA0UvtOs V.8 and more fully on 1% On &d<eAgot, see on 11. Movov pn THY édevdepiay eis apopuny TH TapKi, “Only con- vert not your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh.” wovov, used also in 1% 21° Phil. 127, to call attention not to an exception to a preceding statement, but to an important addi- tion to it, here introduces a most significant element of the apostle’s teaching concerning freedom, which has not been pre- viously mentioned, and which occupies his thought throughout the remainder of this chapter. On this word, as on a hinge, the thought of the epistle turns from freedom to a sharply con- trasted aspect of the matter, the danger of abusing freedom. So far he has strenuously defended the view that the Gentile is 292 GALATIANS not under obligation to keep the statutes of the law, and though he has not referred specifically to any statute except those that pertain to circumcision, food, and the observance of days and seasons, he has constantly spoken simply of law, or the law, without indicating that his thought was limited to any portion or aspect of it. To men who have been accustomed to think of law as the only obstacle to free self-indulgence, or to those who, on the other hand, have not been accustomed to high ethical standards, such language is (despite the contrary teaching of vv.®: °) easily taken to mean that for the Christian there is nothing to stand in the way of the unrestrained indul- gence of his own impulses. Of this danger Paul is well aware (cof. Rom. 6!4- Phil. 3!7#- Col. 3!#-), and beginning with this v. addresses himself vigorously to meeting and averting it. The word adap, previously in this epistle a purely physical term, is used here and throughout this chapter (see vv. 1% 17 2% 4) in a definitely ethical sense, “that element of man’s nature which is opposed to goodness, and makes for evil,” in which it appears also in Rom., chap. 8; see detached note on IIvedua and Zaps II 7, p. 493, and the discussion following 7.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Agacha la cabeza, escaneando el suelo frente a él. —Recibí todas tus cartas. Gracias por las tarjetas telefónicas. ¿Quieres decir las que no usaste para llamarme? Sonrío, sin culparlo. Era una pequeña posibilidad, pero me alegra que recibiera todo. Siempre y cuando supiera que estaba pensando en él… —¿Cómo estás? —Doy un paso al frente y bajo la caja de herramientas, sacando un trapo de mi bolsillo trasero para limpiarme las manos. No habla y respira profundamente. Finalmente, levanta sus ojos azules. —¿Tienes cerveza? Asiento suavemente y lo llevo a la cocina. El aire acondicionado me golpea, enfriando el sudor en mi espalda, y mis nervios hacen que sea difícil respirar, peor en este momento no estoy tan nervioso como pensé que estaría. No está gritando todavía, así que es una buena señal. Abro dos botellas de Corona. La luz del sol de la tarde se desvanece de la mesa de la cocina mientras se oculta detrás de unas nubes. Toma asiento, y hago lo mismo. Cuando permanece en silencio, me doy cuenta que la pelota está en mi cancha. —Entonces, ¿eres feliz? —le pregunto—. ¿En la fuerza militar? Tuve tiempo para acostumbrarme a la idea, especialmente después que su reclutador me lo asegurara, pero necesitaba escucharlo de él. —Sí. —Baja su cerveza a la mesa, manteniendo su puño alrededor de ésta—. No lo sé, supongo que es lo que necesitaba. Ser desgarrado para que me reconstruyeran mejor. Espero para que continúe. —No puedo dormir hasta tarde —dice—. No puedo llegar ebrio. No puedo decir que estoy enfermo si me siento flojo ese día… apesta, pero tengo un trabajo y dinero en la cuenta. Una carrera. Eso se siente muy bien. —Finalmente levanta la mirada—. Tengo un futuro, y para alguien que nunca supo dónde demonios estaba su lugar en el mundo, es algo bueno que los militares decidieran por ti y te dieran dirección. —¿Estás seguro? —Levanto la botella, dándole un trago. Me encanta que esté haciendo algo con su vida, pero también quiero asegurarme que esté haciendo su propio camino. Continúa. —Ahí es donde Jordan y yo nunca tuvimos sentido. Ella sabía lo que estaba en su mente, y lo resentía cuando estaba con ella, porque yo nunca lo supe. —Deja escapar un suspiro—. Yo no era su igual, nunca lo suficientemente bueno para ella. Nunca sería lo suficientemente fuerte mentalmente. Algunos de nosotros simplemente no lo somos. Mi corazón se detiene ante sonido de su nombre, pero lo ignoro. No estoy seguro de que unirse a los militares fuera algo que realmente quisiera hacer con su vida, pero estoy seguro que no estaba encontrando respuestas en este pueblo. Al menos lo sabía. Fue lo suficientemente fuerte para dar ese salto. —Tú hiciste eso, ¿no es así? —pregunto—. Lograste pasar el entrenamiento. Estoy orgulloso de ti. Veo su manzana de Adán subir y bajar, y los músculos de su mandíbula moverse. Toma otro sorbo, todavía sin mirarme.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Se sienta un par de sillas a un lado, me mira y luego de regreso a donde estuve sentada cuando mi teléfono y vino se cayeron. —Puedes sentarte. —Apunta el asiento a su lado, probablemente dándose cuenta que también estoy sola esta noche. —Gracias —le dijo—. Solo iré… No termino. Retrocedo y tomo mi bolso, dándome la vuelta para ir a mi propio asiento cuando veo a un tipo y una chica entrar al teatro. Me congelo, viéndolos girar a la izquierda hacia la fila trasera del otro lado de la sala y tomar asiento. Mierda. Jay McCabe. El único otro novio que he tenido aparte de Cole, y hace parecer a Cole como un príncipe. Desafortunadamente, todavía le encanta lanzarme indirectas cada vez que tiene la oportunidad, y no hay forma en el infierno de que vaya a lidiar con él esta noche. —¿Estás bien? —pregunta el tipo de la luz del teléfono cuando no me muevo— . Prometo que no me propasaré. Eres muy vieja para mí. Le disparo una mirada, olvidándome de Jay y la chica por un momento. ¿Demasiado vieja para él? Observo su más de metro ochenta, la silueta de los músculos a través de su camiseta, y su abultado brazo derecho con una manga completa de tatuajes desapareciendo bajo su camiseta. He visto muchos tipos en el bar, y no se ve como ninguno de diecinueve años que haya conocido. Tiene que tener al menos, ¿qué? ¿Treinta? Resopla. —Estoy bromeando —señala, su boca se extiende en una amplia sonrisa que hace que mi rostro caiga un poco—. Si no quieres ver la película sola, eres bienvenida a sentarte. Es lo único que quise decir. Muevo mi mirada a Jay y a quien sea que está con él, pero luego un grupo de chicos de repente entra por las puertas dobles, haciendo mucho ruido mientras ingresan al teatro. Veo a Jay apartar la vista de la chica y mirar la conmoción, y me dejo caer en el asiento al lado del tipo por instinto, sin querer que Jay me viera. —Gracias —le digo al tipo a mi lado. Siento la presencia de mi ex en el teatro, y los viejos recuerdos regresan, recordando lo impotente que le permití hacerme sentir en un momento. Solo quiero una noche en la que no esté pensando en todo. Me echo hacia atrás y me relajo, pero entonces miro de reojo, la cercana proximidad de un tipo que no conozco sentado a mi lado de repente es como una ardiente hoguera e imposible de ignorar. Giro la cabeza, mirándolo con aprensión. —No eres un asesino en serie, ¿verdad? Frunce su ceño y me mira. —¿Tú lo eres? —Por lo general son hombres caucásicos y antisociales. ¿Un hombre apuesto aquí solo? Mmm… Arquea una gruesa ceja. —Y se ven como una persona normal —añade, con sospecha en su voz mientras me mira de arriba abajo.