Diane Rehm Show

I actually really enjoyed listening to The Diane Rehm Talk Show thing… it was interesting to hear what people had to say about the topic I listened to. I listened to “Shyness and Social Anxiety”. At first I started jotting down notes just so I could write this review, but near the middle of the recording I was jotting down notes because I was genuinely interested and hooked to the topic. I found myself laughing at how into the show I was… J So, in this recording they talked a lot about the broad spectrum of shyness. One of the guests said that about 15% of people would qualify for a social phobia. That was kind of a crazy statistic to me!

One really weird thing they talked about was if shyness was a part of survival. One of the guests told about research that he did on animal survival. It was really strange. They talked about observing shy versus bold animal characteristics… Interesting….

Overall there were so many good things they talked about! It was neat to think about how this topic applied to me. They talked about how of all highly sensitive people who are very aware of their environment and surroundings, only 20% become bold and more outgoing. And that’s ME! I think a lot of times that I am so shy and quiet, when really I’m quite the opposite. Now, granted it depends on the setting and who I am with, but most times I’m the loud, obnoxious, crazy one the everyone secretly wishes would shut up… well hopefully I’m not really that bad. But, I can get pretty crazy and bubbly.

In the podcast it also discussed how having therapy for shyness and social phobias is not a bad thing. A few years ago I started going to see a counselor, just to talk about things and get my head on a little bit straighter. It was amazing what talking to someone about my specific problems did. In the podcast, one of the guests said, “Everyone needs psychological fitness checkups!” They compared this counseling to an athlete with a personal trainer. A personal trainer just works with the person to help them improve their physical abilities. A psychiatrist or any other counselor helps their patient improve their social abilities.

SO… I think I could keep going for a long time. Instead, I’ll just tell you that you should go listen to it, cause it was really good! Here’s the link if you are interested: 

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-08-09/shyness-and-social-anxiety

ENJOY!