Thursday, July 10, 2008

quest for self


I dunno if this picture will work or not... stupid computer.
Anyway, as part of my ongoing quest to become comfortable in my own presence I took myself out tonight all by myself. I went for a walk, got gelati and then went on a swing till I got motion sick (which in my case, takes less then five minutes). It was nice. I'm not great at spending time with myself, but certainly better then I was a year ago and I find that encouraging. I may be shy, but I am DEFINITELY an extrovert!
One of my friends suggested today that some of my problems with my coworkers may be that I'm too shy. She actually started by suggesting that I talk to much and that turns them off. Because really, I talk A LOT. Look how much I write! But, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I can actually be really hard to get to know. The staff I have the hardest time with are staff who intimidate me. And because they intimidate me, I don't really talk to them and I don't respond really well to them. Interesting...
Then of course she pointed out that people are probably threatened by me. I'm knew, and yet I'm good at what I do. One of my supervisors has suggested this to me as well. I don't like to think that. I don't feel like I should threaten them, but in a way, I can see there point. But still, social workers aren't scary! Really, we're not!

4 comments:

antiSWer said...

There's a lot of contradiction going on there! You're shy, yet an extrovert. You talk too much, but you're hard to get to know. Fun! :)

About the being in your own presence: it's a great idea. I had to learn how to do this a while back and got to the point where I was able to take myself out to dinner without too much fear. Good for you for taking care of yourself.

Oh, and about social workers not being scary: I think we should all be at least a little bit scary. There's no reason nurses should have all the fun! Besides, some of the best social workers I know are the angry ones! :p

Awake and Dreaming said...

I've been working on my scary face!

Anonymous said...

Hi there!

I am a Social Work student (I'm in Canada also). It's interesting reading about someone who is fairly new in the field.

I also have similar problems because I'm shy. I tend to babble also, and I don't like silences. It's hard not to get intimidated when you're shy like us.

Awake and Dreaming said...

Hi Mandy, I'm glad you like it :)

One of my professors took a special "liking" to my dislike of silences and made me work on it through my entire degree... I'm a lot better with them now, but still. Silence... ick.