High Anxiety

A quick note for myself as much as anyone else.  A couple of potentially good things happened today.  I’ll go into more detail if/when they materialise.  I had a lot of anxiety, though, which probably isn’t surprising as change is scary, but I had anxiety in my shiur (religious class) as well.  I had the difficulty focusing (I mean literally, problems focusing especially things on the periphery of my field of vision) that can be a symptom of anxiety (a fight or flight response to focus on a threat and tune out everything else) and a gnawing sense of unease at times.  It’s frustrating, as I know a lot that would be relevant to bring to this class and on a couple of occasions I knew things that the teacher didn’t know or got wrong, but I was too shy to say anything (maybe it wasn’t a bad thing not to correct the teacher).  I only answered one question.  I think I would get more out of the class if I interacted, but I’m too shy.  In previous similar shiurim (years ago) I have participated more, but I think that was a smaller class and also one where interaction was encouraged more or even enforced, if that’s not too strong a word.  It probably would be better for myself and other people if could interact more, but I still struggle with this.

Tomorrow I have a day-long conference on building a second career.  I haven’t even built my first one, but will go, but I’m reluctant to spend the lunch hour networking as advised.  Aside from social anxiety, my brain will be burnt out if I don’t get a proper break.  The conference is run by a Jewish employment charity and all the food is strictly kosher so for once I’ll be able to eat the complementary refreshments.