Dear Anoob:

You are welcome. You asked for my thoughts, so I re-read your posts. I will give you my thoughts about the following quotes from what you shared:

“if I .. am about to do some speech or said to do some performance in future or thinking there can be some chances of those all I feel anxious, hand trembling, voice shivering and chance to skip those events… I am comfortable with a new crowd, but worries with familiar crowd. I think I really worries about the judgment of people who are known to me… I can explain my true feelings to those who are close to me; there may be chance of sympathize or make fun of me by others.. I have a thought like I need to be valued by others by whom all I am familiar with. That is why I am uncomfortable with expressing and managing my negative emotions in front of them, since I think it will reduce my value“-

– it seems to me that you had bad experiences as a child with some of your family. Some people in your family repeatedly judged/ reduced your value, and made fun of you when you expressed yourself. As a result, you felt very hurt and afraid that it will happen again. In the present time,  you are still afraid to be criticized and be made fun of yet again. (You are afraid that they will reduce your value because they already did).

I suspected this before and asked you about your childhood. Your answer was: “I had a good childhood with my family, friends and relatives; nobody judged me a lot“- I figure however much you were judged was more than enough to create your anxiety about speaking to family and friends (“familiar crowd.. people who are known to me”).

You wrote earlier: “I am basically somewhat sensitive like  my mother, however I was not aware about that till I read a book named ‘The Highly Sensitive Person'”- you suggested that you were born highly sensitive/ anxious; nothing to do with your childhood experience.

I am familiar with that book and the concept of a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP): it is not a medical or scientific term or diagnosis. It is a term that one psychotherapist made up and wrote a book about. The suggestion in that term is that some people are born sensitive and anxious(and gifted) and it has nothing to do with their childhood. I disagree.

You wrote: “I learned self awareness last year”- but are you aware of who your family members are, those who judged you, reduced your value and made fun of you?

* To be more aware of who you are, you have to be more aware of who are the people who shaped you: how they affected you as a child, as a teenager, and still, in the present.

“my mind is generating all my emotions.. Mostly it’s an automatic process for years. If I could do some purposeful intervention on that the emotions, it won’t be that much intense. So it will be easy to manage. What is your thoughts on that”- I think that your emotions now are the same emotions you had as a child when judged etc., and they automatically get replayed. It happens to all children who experienced more than enough hurt in their childhoods.

The intervention you mentioned, that which will make it easier for you to manage your emotions,  has to include the awareness of how your emotions originated: in what circumstances (who was there, who judged you/ reduced your value/ made fun of you, and how they did that).

It is a painful process, to become aware of such. I know, because I experienced it myself: being judged, devalued and made fun of, as a child and a teenager. And I am very familiar with how the hurt, shame, anger, intense desire to be valued, and fear of further humiliation that I felt as a child-  kept replaying in my mind as an adult.

anita

Dear Anoob:

I appreciate you sharing a bit more about your life. When you wrote about your sister “born and brought up in same situation is not having that much anxiety”, it made me think of my sister. I was a very anxious child and adult, and for the longest time it puzzled me, how (it appeared to me) that my sister had no anxiety. While I was struggling big time, seems like she was the most normal child in the world, popular and happy. That made me think that she is the proof that there is something fundamentally wrong with me personally, because my sister grew up in the same home I did. It took me a few decades to finally realize that she was anxious all along, suffering from panic attacks, etc.

You wrote that your father, a very caring, strong man is “a bit short tempered”, and your mother, a caring supportive woman, is a “bit sensitive”- it doesn’t take a lot to spook a child.  A child is easily intimidated by a bit of short-temper in a parent, and a bit, but persistent anxiousness in a parent.

I hope your meditation and yoga practice helps, and please remind yourself to treat yourself with empathy, at all times.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by .

Dear Anoob:

You are very welcome. I am glad to read that you will treat yourself as your own best friend, in good and bad situations, showing yourself empathy and compassion. Also, good to read that you understand that it is a time consuming process.

You are welcome to post here anytime you want to, any time you feel like it. Whenever you do, I will attentively read and reply to you.

anita