It’s holiday season. That means tons of social events with work, family and friends. My life has a lot of that stuff in general but around the holidays, a lot of it can be condensed into a short period of time.

What a lot of people don’t seem to know – and I have definitely improved on – is my social anxiety.

I often feel like my mind has left my body and am watching myself feeling like a tomato in a room full of potatoes.

That was probably a bizarre comparison but I often feel like everyone is so confident with small talk (or talking in general) that I don’t know what to say. Or worse it comes out as verbal diarrhea.

The thing I realized is: I’m not alone.

I had a meet up the other day and an artist that I was hanging out with, who is a totally badass performer live had the same shyness and anxieties in the room that I did. We talked to each other about being afraid to chat with people but then proceeded to think of opening lines. It was kind of fun to know that someone else was having similar reservations, especially someone who is super confident on stage.

We met and bonded with some new people. It’s totally okay to be a ball of nervous energy.