A Mindful Path Through Shyness

[David Baxter PhD]

Taking a Mindful Path Through Shyness
by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
Nov 14th 2009

In our culture, shyness seems to be perceived as something of a deficit in character. Steve Flowers, author of The Mindful Path Through Shyness, explains that shyness can also be seen as a human temperament that can be regarded as positive, being modest, quiet, and demure.

However, he goes further to say:

"Some aspects of shyness aren't positive and create what I'll refer to as problematic shyness. These aspects include feelings of being unsafe in interpersonal relationships and feelings of social anxiety, which lead to protective behaviors."​

So when shyness becomes a problem, people start looking inward for problems and become more self-critical and isolative. Eventually, this could lead to what's called Social Anxiety Disorder or a social phobia. What happens here is people become paralyzed with intense fear of being humiliated or embarrassed when in relationship to others. The reason this is called a disorder is because it causes so much distress that it greatly impairs someone's life toward feeling well.

However, make no mistake, shyness does not equate to a disorder.

These self critical stories we begin to identify with about our personalities, appearance and behavior are just that... stories. However, we consider them our identities, defining who we are. So we thoughts come in our minds that we are "weak" or "a loser," we really believe that is who we are.

Flowers says, "We all live in mental and emotional worlds that we essentially create and perpetuate with the habits of mind or stories that we tell ourselves. We tend to identify completely with the stories we repeat to ourselves and others and create afflictive mental and emotional states that bring much suffering into our lives. "

Mindfulness has the ability to observe these thoughts habitual patterns of the mind without getting caught up in them and without falling in the trap of berating yourself in the process. In doing this, you begin to come to terms with what is really true for you and expand the opportunity to choose where to invest your mental energy, rather than it being chosen for you.

YouTube - STOP: A Short Mindfulness Practice

 

[Retired]

shyness does not equate to a disorder

I am reminded of numerous well know actors, and other stage performers who are shy and socially clumsy in private situations whereas on stage they dominate the stage and control their audiences.

The example that immediately comes to mind was Johnny Carson, who was unequalled as a comedian, persformer and talk show host, but when confronted in private was socially clumsy.

Many professionals who can speak eloquently before an audience are shy and withdrawn in a one on one situation, I have found.

Have you known people like that?

 

[Daniel E.]

I was going to say David Letterman, but he seems to have overcome his shyness with women :teehee:

 

[Daniel E.]

From an interview with Steve Flowers:

You mention in your introduction that the phrase “painfully shy” was quite literal for you. How do shy people suffer? How do they protect themselves?
The anxiety a shy person can feel when around other people can be so painful that it is socially incapacitating. In such an anxiety you can lose track in a conversation or if you do try to speak your voice or hand might tremble and betray your fear to everyone. A predictable next step in this painful sequence is to imagine what they are thinking about you and fill in the blanks with your worst personal criticisms. This is an all too familiar scenario in the social life of a shy person and can create enormous complications! It’s not unusual to then freeze like a deer in the headlights or begin searching for avenues of escape. Real connection with others becomes impossible and you become increasingly alienated from everyone – including yourself. You may end up protecting yourself by drinking too much at social gatherings or avoiding such gatherings altogether.

Why is mindfulness a good technique to help a person deal with shyness? Why doesn’t mindfulness overcome shyness?
Much or even most of what we suffer from in life comes from our own thoughts – the stories and self talk we fill our minds with. A huge piece of problematic shyness is comprised of these thoughts. The practice of mindfulness meditation can help you find a perspective where you can witness the thoughts and emotions that make up the stories you live in and disidentify from the tales they spin. The practice helps you find a little distance from your painful, old stories and recognize that who you really are is something much more than these habitual mental events. Thoughts come and go and emotions come and go but the part of you that witnesses these passing events doesn’t come and go. This is your awareness and when you take your place within it the internal critic loses its teeth, so to speak. You see that you don’t have to fall for the ugly self-blaming and shaming anymore. It’s just a critical thought. It’s just another projection. You may still be shy but no longer identify with the vicious self-talk that created so much suffering. From awareness, shyness can even become part of your beauty.

As you mention, we live in a hyper-communicative world. From texting to Tweeting, it seems as if our lives have traveled to a very verbal realm. What can the nonverbal world offer shy people?
In one of Rumi’s poems, he invites us to “close the language door and open the love window.” Clear awareness leads to clear perception and clear expression. Not only can you come home to yourself, your own true nature and to the amazing power and beauty of love when you somehow and sometimes “close the language door” in meditation, but, you are far more capable of really connecting with others when you are fully present. More often than not, words get in the way of really meeting another person - not just the words that you attempt to use while communicating with others, but also the words you have jabbering in your head. Rather than listening to the person in from of you, you may be thinking of what to say next or a million other things. All this self-talk, the rehashing and the rehearsing, the judging, the trying to impress others or conceal or protect yourself - the whole mess of thoughts you are usually entangled in is like static between you and everyone one else. This static has a great deal to do with shyness. Swept up in the never-ending stream of words, you lose touch with our own deep center and can’t sense anyone else’s.

When you bring non-discursive awareness into dialog you find it’s possible to shut up and listen from your own clear presence and actually hear and feel what the person is saying. When you’re not swamped with your own sometimes incessant self-talk, you can stop trying to say the right things, what ever those are, to actually feeling what is true for you and give expression to truth without it being a part of some agenda to impress someone or accomplish some goal. It’s paradoxical in a way - that by spending more time in non-discursive awareness, which is by definition “an awareness without words” - you can become more skillful in expressing and listening to words. There is a passionate and palatable aliveness that emerges and we can share as we, in the beautiful words of Emily Dickinson, learn to “sing the song without the words that never stops at all.”

 

[greenstarz]

These two articles are the first things ive ever read that understand and explain correctly how i feel. thank you. i feel hope that theres a way to get better.

 

[suewatters1]

I have a friend like that. He is a professional business man who knows his stuff who doesn't mind being in front of 1000 people to make a presentation. But when it comes to his private life he is like a turtle with his head hiding for no one to see. I am trying to have a close relationship with him for years and I just realize I have to be the one making all the moves on him. I also have to give him some of the confidence he is missing due to personal problems he had all is life. I am shy also but I realize I have to be the one making the moves on him and ask him to take me to the restaurant which he hasn'r done yet but promised me he will. He also has Agoraphobia PTSD. He is 10 years older then I am and I have been in love with him for so long that I want to help him get rid of his shyness and gain back some of his confidences