by Mark Tyrrel
"Laughter is the closest distance between 2 people"
Shy people naturally know what they are lacking. Shyness is synonym of lost opportunities, less pleasure & lost social connections.
Shyness can be crippling but there are tried & tested ways to make it a thing of the past.
When I was fifteen I was shy. I recall an attractive girl attempting to engage me in conversation. My shyness meeting people made me focus on me instead of her.
I heard my own voice but not hers & I thought about what I was trying to say instead of what she was trying to say.
The formula for shyness is "too much focus on the self" plus anxiety.
To make it even more unpleasant, sometimes when you are feeling shy you experience physical sensations which 'hijack' your calm logical self.
My pulse raced, my mouth dried up & I felt like the village idiot!
I couldn't think what to say so I said nothing apart from making barely audible grunting noises!
Cary Grant eat your heart out!
When I detected pity in her eyes (or was it contempt, or boredom) I mumbled my excuse & got out of there. I hated being shy & was determined to change it.
How shyness is developed & maintained
Shyness really is a combination of social anxiety plus social conditioning. To overcome shyness meeting people you need to learn to relax socially.
This enables you to direct your attention away from yourself & gives you the space to practice certain conversational skills.
In most cases, the heightened emotions of socializing when young simply condition the sufferer to respond to social events with fear, instead of excitement and pleasure.
Relaxed socializing is so pleasurable, not to say productive, but it is an advantage denied to many until they learn to relax. To start reducing your own shyness, I want you to absorb the following tips and ideas and start to put them into practice:
1) Think about the way you feel and behave around familiar people you are comfortable and spontaneous around. It's that feeling transferred to new people and situations that equates to your emerging social confidence.
2) Focus your attention away from yourself. Sure, you can think a little bit about how you are coming across, but if all your focus is on your own words and feelings then you might as well be by yourself.
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