Hello book lovers,
I am Alin and welcome to my channel. Today I am going to talk about how you can increase confidence, improve your self-esteem and have a bit of fun in a bookshop or a library.
I have to confess I am an introvert and I suffered from social anxiety. But Last year decided to go to a cognitive behavioural therapist to solve this issue and make some changes in my life. During the therapy, I had to challenge myself and try all sorts of things that would take me out of my comfort zone. Those things are called shame attacking exercises. And I’ve done shame attacks by myself or with other people.
What is a shame attacking exercise:
it is an exercise for people with social anxiety and other types of anxiety to deal with shameful situations without trying to come up with an explanation for their behaviour. To give you a quick example, this is an exercise that I’ve done some time ago. I went one time to Victoria’s Secrets and I asked one girl there if they have a ‘bra my size’ and my expectation was to be refused because I will look like some kind creep and be kicked out of the shop. But the girl acted very professionally and she measured my chest, told me my size and what kind of bras they have, which are on sale and which are not. So things didn’t go as I expected.
But today I am going to talk only about my experience with bookshop assistants, So let’s get started.
Ask for Sex Book Recommendation
This is an experiment that I’ve done last year. I entered a bookshop in Dublin city centre and asked the assistant there if it is possible to get a recommendation from him and asked him: excuse me, which book would you recommend The Joy of Sex or The Kama Sutra.
He seemed a bit flustered with my question and he answered: ‘I am not sure but I can check for you’. He asked me to spell Kama Sutra for him to search it in the system and then he asked if I want to order this book. Because he didn’t answer my question, I repeated the question again but told it differently: could you suggest which book should I choose, which one is better if I should choose the Joy of Sex or the Kama Sutra. He made a short pause and after that, he answered me: I would go with the Kama Sutra because it was published by the Oxford University Press. He came with a really good answer, so I said I will think about it. And went out of the shop.
Ask for a Book on Bodily Functions Taboo
This time I was in Bucharest and I went to one the biggest bookshops and I was pretty anxious to ask these questions because I had this feeling that the assistant will be shouting at me or they will call security to kick me out. So what did I do: After ten minutes of wandering around the bookshop, I said to myself I am going there and I will ask here. I went there and I asked the girl at the counter: hi there, do you have any books on farting?
She immediately turned red and looked stupefied by my question and I added something to make the question more serious: ‘I am not looking for medical books on the topic, but I would be interested in fiction or an essay on this topic. And she immediately answered: ‘No, we don’t have any books on this topic’ and she put her head down, not wanting to make eye contact with me because she was more embarrassed than I was.. And I said thank you and I got out of there happy that I could do that.
Ask for a Book on a Taboo Activity
This shame attacking exercise happened in a bookshop in Dublin and I went to assistant there and asked here: ‘I am looking for a sex manual, do you have any?’ – and her face was like this, and she put her head like she is searching something on the computer, but after to make the situation even more embarrassing I said on a low voice: you know, my girlfriend said ‘I am not really good in bed’ I felt like the girl was trying to hide under that counter. In the end, she said, without looking at me, that they do not have what I am looking for. And I said thank you and I got out from there relieved that nothing bad had happened
If you would like to try some of these shame attacking exercises, you could choose to go with the ones I tried or choose other bodily functions or taboo activities like masturbation, incest or bestiality
That’s the end of this post. I hope you found this information useful.
Next week I will talk about an amazing book, Bridge to Terabithia.
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