No! You've realized that there is a distance to traverse which will inevitably lead to your utter demise. Pulse quickening, beading sweat, and a stomach that is about to lurch from its once calm resting place. You take the first steps across a campus, into church, into work, or to your friends house for a get together with others you have not met. Then it attacks. Your worst enemy. It constrains, confuses, causes calamity, and completely confines you from attempting to have a normal conversation with everyday people - your thoughts. Your thoughts are such powerful tool. They can form you into someone that lives positively, loves life, and looks at the impossible as an exciting challenge to overcome. They can also produce negativity, despise others, and create a crippling fear that seems to stunt everything you want to accomplish in  life.

I too have experienced the fears of what it is like to have a crippling social anxiety. The feeling that has risen within me when approaching a group of people in order to make friends is almost unparalleled to any other feeling. This post is going to be more about my experience when dealing with social anxiety rather than an approach of how to specifically deal with it.

My Personal Experience
I have had many failures when trying interact with others. Generally everyone on this planet has had at least one experience where an interacting with another human being has not gone so well. The problem arises, in my opinion, when a person allows anxiety to become such a hindrance in his/her life that it causes one to avoid common, daily situations due to fear. In my past I had started attending a new church, but I didn't know very many people. It was incredibly nerve wracking for me to even go up and meet people I had never interacted with before. All the self-deprecating thoughts began to wreak havoc in my mind. "This person obviously could not like me". "Great! I just said something completely ridiculous and they now think I'm the weirdest person on the planet". Eventually when the friends I did know, and came to church with, started talking to people I did not know very well I began to remove myself and sit down on a chair in silence just a few feet from them until the conversation was finished. I realized how bad it had become when I knew everyone in the conversation circle, but I had such a negative image of myself I would walk away and sit down. All the while thinking why they would even bother to want to talk to me.
These thoughts had become an unrelenting train of low self-esteem and anxiety that really needed to be addressed and dealt with.

How I (Currently) Deal With Anxiety/Low-Esteem
There are a number of ways someone can attempt to fix the socially crippling effect of anxiety and low self-esteem. Here are some ways in which I have tried to solve this constant issue in my life. Now these may or may not prove to work, but they seem to help me:

• Stop trying to read others thoughts!
• Very difficult. This is probably the most difficult. I try to read people all the time. Sometimes I'm right. Usually I am not, which can cause problems. Every time I do this I need to stop thinking about what they might be thinking of me, but instead focus on the conversation and being myself no matter if I think he/she dislikes me for any reason. Most of the time people are self-centered anyway, so they give a person only fleeting thoughts.
• If you are fearful of it then do it
• This concept has been especially hard. I am constantly afraid of interaction with others. Sometimes even with people I'm really good friends with! (Goes back to reading people's thoughts) There was a janitor at church I saw, and I did not even want to say hello to him. I eventually faced it and went up to just randomly talk to him. So what if I failed? At least I tried.
• You will fail, but you will never give up
• Failing is part of life, but the benefit of failing is learning from your mistakes and going back time and time again despite failure. If anyone were to tell me that I'm not good in social situations, or conversing, or weird, or anything I need to disallow their words to infiltrate my mind thus becoming negative thoughts.
• Hold every thought captive to Christ! (2 Corinthians 10:5)
• Really this is an all encompassing idea. Anything thought that hurts or hinders my walk with Christ needs to be sincerely prayed about and dealt with.

These are just my ways of how I try to deal with anxiety, fear, low self-esteem, etc. My hope is that this will give you hope. Everyone handles situations, thoughts, and circumstances in his/her life differently, so please share how you handle this!

-Caleb 

To start off the beginning journey of my musings I would like to declare what this blog will be about.. Me. Seemingly unpredictable, yet surprisingly self-engrossing. I am, of course, kidding.

I tried many times to think of a theme for this blog, but alas I have not had a revelatory moment of what it should be. In the mean time I suppose I will write about the moments in my life that seem to stand out the most to me which I might deem worthy enough to be shared. In the process of trying to locate and choose a topic interesting to me, as well as to others, I hope to find something concrete and consistent to blog about. 

Let me start with just a short snippet of information about me...
I am currently a 20, soon to be 21 year old college student with an interest of the world and the people in it! I'm an introverted fellow with growing interests. The major I have chosen for myself is Psychology. People, the things they do, and why they do them is incredibly interesting to me. I reside in Missouri, however, I am originally from the Hoosier state of Indiana. I've been in Missouri for a couple of years going to Central Bible College, but eventually that college shutdown and we were all transferred to Evangel University. Yes, this also means that I am a Christian too! Church and by extension following Jesus, are very important things in my life. 

That's the short, fairly condensed version of my life! I hope that as I post about topics that interest me, and others, you will begin to learn more about me as well.

I look forward to hearing from potential readers!
-Caleb Whitlow