Wow, thank you so much for your helpful replies – and i was worrying that my question would look really daft. But this is such a nice community 🙂

Nicole – i think you are right what you say to “Be open to seeing the world in a lighter way.”.
It is easy to see (but i forget easily) that when i’m with a head full of worries and body full of tensions, nothing is funny, whereas where i’m just in a lighter mood, i see the beauty and humorousness of many things very easily.
It’s funny to see when i think about things that i need, how each time meditation comes up as one of the main things to help me how to achieve it. So back to creating a meditation routine, i slip out of it easily sometimes when life gets busy…

Annie – i know that i have humor, i’ve had quite some difficult times in my life and humor helped me a lot to get through these things. Also a good laugh at all my strange traits is the best thing that helps me.
I don’t know if i’m really trying to come up with humor. Probably sometimes yes, and similar, trying to come up with things to say and then ending up not saying anything because i’m worried that it will sound silly. At the moment the only place of social contact is my work, and there i am already more tensed then usually. So i think it’s time to look for an other social activity that i like, perhaps that might help me to relax, and not let my work place not be the only thing because that’s definitely not healthy. I had read that article as well, and after reading it i decided to try to make a bit more chat at work, instead of first turning every sentence over in my head and then not saying anything. It certainly does feel uncomfortable and awkward but it feels good that i have a few exchanges with co-workers.

What i wrote about the mockery, is that it can be subtle and easy. And probably the way my parents and family used to (and still) be ‘funny’ at me. By pointing out things that i can’t and in a way that put me down and make me lose confidence in yourself – maybe i’m just too sensitive. That seems to be the only way that i learned. But now i do see some people who can point out your mistakes or flaws, in a loving way, in a way that shows that you are appreciated or trying to make you see something you could do differently. Or just lighten up a situation with some humorous input, without wanting to score themselves. And that is lovely. I agree – analysing it and planning it is not going to help. But i would like to be able more of the second type.

Anita – you are probably right, i think indeed i just need to relax. I used to try to act in a funny way – which consisted of acting like a silly little thing most of the time, which was definitely not good for my self-respect, and self-worth, because i started to believe in this role. So maybe it is good for me that i’m being a bit more serious and learning to take myself serious, like the capable adult that i am instead of putting myself down.

I was surprised a few days ago at work, where a collegue said something and the way i replied surprised myself. I don’t even know if they found it funny, but i felt it was one of these genuine moments for myself, where i suddenly got to relax and came up with something unexpected. I was surprised to see myself stepping out of my role of anxious, nervous girl for a moment, without thinking about it, and i could feel my body relax and get more cheerful while i was doing it.
Your question at the end of your post, is probably the crucial one for me in my life at the moment 🙂

I don’t know how to relax with others, because my work is literally the only place of social contact for me and i tend to keep turning over all these things in my head the whole day also when i’m off work. So i’ll need to work on doing that.
And i feel strange to suddenly try to act differently at work, i got into this pattern and persona of someone anxious, who is always rushing to do her work and not knowing how to stop for a moment to make a little chat. And then i worry about how it will look to others if i suddenly start to be totally different. Yes i think i worry a bit too much :-/
But anyway, i need to have a good look at what i can do to relax around others. That is indeed probably much more crucial than humor, which will maybe come natural if i’m relaxed.

Oof i’m not good in writing short pieces, the writing is helping me to get things more straight..
Thank you so much for your kind advice and insight 🙂

Thank you so much for your replies.

Anita, if i read right, you are inviting me to write more about it…
I can try, although it feels strange because i already feel that i’m taking too much space and time from the people who read it…

That moment that happened at work was very small, but meaningful for me because it was spontanuous and unexpected, and because i framed myself in a nice way – which is quite rare for me 😉 You say to do that again, gradually. But i don’t know how to do that again, it just happened, and things like that will probably happen again, but i don’t know how to say: ok now i’m gonna reply spontanuously. I’m usually so frigging tensed that to be spontanuous doesn’t seem an option.
Most of the time i don’t like the sound of my voice at work, or my facial expression, because they come from so much tension and come across forced (to my feeling, but i assume people pick that up a lot easier than i realise).
Since a few days i decided to try to talk more to my collegues, which i find really difficult, because i don’t know what to say. I’m so limited to seeing something right in front of my nose or seeing the other person doing something and then saying something about it, but that’s very narrow and makes me very limited. Anyway, i know i will have to give it time, it looks evident for most people but for me it is difficult so i will need to learn it. By trying to say some things, hopefully gradually the atmosphere between my collegues and me might relax a bit more and hopefully gradually i will feel more relaxed to say other things.
I just really don’t know what you have to talk about. I guess you have to find something common, but i already in advance assume that there isn’t much common. The atmosphere in my work (hotel-bar-restaurant-nightclub) is totally not my own habitat. So i already feel that i’m out of place and have to try to adapt to their ‘way’. Which is silly. And it is not just my work, in general i always feel that i have to try to adapt to the other, to please them i guess could you say. So most of the time i feel like a chameleon. I’m automatically changing the way that i talk, my volume, my speed… to the other person. And i will not talk much about myself because of the deep belief that i am not good and interesting enough – a huge cognitive distortion, but by always acting out of it, i seem to make it true.

Kind of ‘i have to become like you and then i will be good enough for you’ – and i do that with most persons, it’s really tiring. And i take over their mood or their vibes and i kind of automatically join them in that.
My new housemate has a way of talking that feels very agitated for me. She talks a lot, doesn’t always listen and with some things that i used to do but am done with. But automatically i join in her way of conversation – i assume out of the deep fear that if i don’t copy her, she will not like me and it will end up in me having to look for an other house. I have a colluege that i don’t feel relaxed around, she asks a lot of attention and ofte says the same things – i either join her in her way, or i ignore her and get all stiff, i don’t find a way to talk to her in a relaxed state. An other colluege talks a lot about things that interest me, so i will talk back with him, but it’s usually he who initiates the conversation and i feel like i’m a kind of fill-in. An other colluege is somebody i like, very calm and helpful, but little attempts to make conversation with him (which mainly mean that i’m asking him some little questions), usually don’t turn out to much. So if we are working together, it can feel quite awkward. When he tries to make conversation with me i usually don’t know what to reply which is quite frustrating. I assume it’s somebody i can’t copy so easily because he is more similar like me and more quiet, so then i don’t know what kind of conduct (don’t know if that’s the right word, hopefully you’ll understand me) to take on. And it’s frustrating because that’s somebodo that i actually do want to create more contact with, not a friendship but a more friendly contact.
In general, i often don’t choose who the people are that i talk with most, that usually gets decided by who talks more easily to me, but the people that i’m interested in are usually others. Which is stupid because it makes me more alienated from myself that i don’t even get in contact with those who i’d like to.
I assume the main thing is that i need to learn to believe myself interesting and good enough for people that i find interesting. Now i seem to need their reassurance, so it is hard to show myself because of the constant fear of their rejection, and that comes so hard.
Learning to think differently about myself and perhaps spend more time with things that interest me. And daring to take a risk – taking initiative to start a conversation, to start to tell some things (what…?) in order to initiate a contact. At the moment i don’t seem to do that at all because i’m so afraid for rejection – what if they don’t reply, what if they think i’m talking too much, what if they find me boring…?
Of course i’ll have to learn to feel if somebody is interested in what i’m saying and these things probably will still build up slowly, but i will have to dare to take this ‘risk’ – which i’m avoiding completely right now.

When i talk to people at work (at the moment my main point of reference), i don’t just talk in a relaxed way, but i seem to talk in a asking, insecure way, as if i’m asking a question the whole time and needing reassurance from them. I can imagine that it’s not very attractive to talk more with somebody like that, that it is tiring and unsettling for them and might make them uncomfortable. But i don’t know how to just change my way to something more natural.

I definitely will have to learn to be less tensed around others, but perhaps to start when i’m alone.

Ok this is a long piece, and it’s getting a bit away from my original post, but you asked me to write without editing and re-reading, so i decided to try that and this is what came up.

And Anita, you gave that examply about the baby being too self-conscious to normal do his human need (don’t know how you say that in English in a nice way 😉 ) in his diapers, and i assume you were just giving an example, not talking about yourself.

It is probably not surprising if i say that i struggle a lot with constipation problems (sorry hope i’m not too offensive now with that word…?) since a long time. It is all related with holding yourself in and not being able to let go. It will depend a lot on what i eat, but in some periods where i was daily meditating, i often could go during or after the meditation. When i take a moment to relax and not put any pressure on myself…

But actually i just remember, my father told me that i had a lot of severe constipation problems already when i was a baby. So yes, that might show that i learned from very little to be blocked on holding myself in – of course i don’t know anything about that time, but i assume that it was an emotional reaction to what was happening, much rather than a physical condition.