I have trouble dealing with confrontation and with acknowledging and honoring my passions. It does take a long time to overcome one’s conditioning about those things, and for me learning to acknowledge when things go right (ie. that nobody died after I had a confrontation with someone, or that nobody laughed at me when I geeked out about one of my passions) went hand-in-hand with antidepressants. I think my meds lowered my self-consciousness enough that the years of working on being myself were able to pay off. I know that’s not an option for you right now, but something you may wish to consider if you haven’t already. I can’t tell you how fantastic it felt the first time I was able to allow myself to feel proud of something I did rather than just dwell on how I could have done it better.

Otherwise, practice makes perfect, and I hope you stick to your resolution of marveling at your accomplishment after your write about your passion. One of the things I’ve discovered is that the best way to advocate for yourself and your writing is to show your passion…so keep going!!

For myself, I’ve found that I think to much either reflecting negatively on what I did or thinking about how people would react. Meditation has helped me to learn to let go of negative thoughts that aren’t helping. That was only successful though once my emotions normalized. But that’s just what has worked for me not necessarily a recommendation. I guess in a way even though I do now without thinking several times over in a day things I used to agonize for weeks over I don’t dwell on the accomplishment much because it is normal and I should think my doing them normal and not exceptional. Sometimes when I do think about myself in the past, like sitting in the car, terrified of driving and screaming and sobbing at the driving instructor….well I never thought I would be able to drive much do all the things I’m doing now. So it’s amazing to me when I do stop and think about it I guess but I don’t really talk about it because most people don’t understand. And yeah, I don’t think about it too much because then I’m on to the next thing and having thought so much all my life I’m kind of tired of it, I want to do now. But since you’re a writer, reflection is kind of necessary isn’t it? So there isn’t much in my story for advice.