Overcoming Shyness and Fears – Coping with shyness – Get rid of shyness – Some Tips & Exercises

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Symptoms of shyness

—blushing
—heart pounding
—”butterflies” in the stomach
—strong feelings of uncertainty
—difficulty carrying on a conversation

Possible Causes of Shyness

—lack of confidence (ok… that’s too obvious)
—inferiority complex (you are a creature of GOD, why would god discriminate in his creatures? think about it… and stop feeling inferior)
—your thinking pattern (of negative thoughts, so fear creeps in, and your subconscious mind reacts according to that)
—lack of knowledge about the expected behavior in social situations
—sometimes, its based upon your previous experiences

First of all you will need to learn how to relax. Shy people often get anxious or “tensed” in social situations. When I say “tensed” I literally mean it. In social situations, where you feel shy; you get tensed up, your muscles tighten, all of your body literally builds tension (like if we stretch a rope). All you have to do is to loosen yourself. Anxiety Cure

This may help:

Every night before sleeping lie down on your back. I will recommend removing the pillow. Put your hands beside your body (so that they point to the feet). Now take some deep breaths. Say to yourself my body is getting relaxed. Imagine all of your body parts going into the state of ultimate relaxation one by one. Start from head to toe. Imagine all the tension in your muscles is getting out from your body through the fingers of your hand. Finally all of your body is completely relaxed and you are experiencing ULTIMATE RELAXATION. At this time imagine a golden light which is giving you infinite power to help you succeed in every aspect of the life. This way you will get a very sound sleep also.

Now again coming back to social situations… if you start getting tensed… just say to yourself “RELAX” and imagine all the tension easing out from your body (as you do while sleeping). Ease your shoulders and loosen up. You will be more calm and cool then. Now say affirmatively to yourself: “I am in control of how I think and feel – no one else on earth has this power unless I give it away.” And this is a FACT. In this way, take control of your attitude, and you will take control of your results.

Now the technical stuff explaining why the muscles get tensed

What happens in our bodies when we are under threat. It’s very much chemistry. When subjected to a threat or fear, such as real conflict, your body will release chemicals to help you fight with the situation. These will affect your body and mind in certain specific ways. Your heart beat will increase. You start loosing control over your tongue. You no longer remain who you actually are. Your mind stops working and you know what to say.

The SOLUTION – How to loose fear?

1. Let me make it clear… FEARS HAVE NO REALITY (yes, I am shouting). They doesn’t simply exist. They exist only in one’s mind. I will make it clear. A small child can be paralyzed with fear when a playmate says there is a monster under the bed who will grab him in the night. But when the parent turns on the light and shows there is no monster, he is freed from fear. The fear in the mind of the child was every bit as real as if there were really a monster there. The thing he feared did not exist. In the same way, most of our fears have no reality. They are merely illusions.

Most of the fears exist more from PROGRAMMING than from reality.

Ok… let me tell you an another story when I was young (say, 15 years old). I didn’t know driving. I had a fear in my mind that I can not drive and will not able to drive for my entire life. I really feared driving. But, then I started to learn driving. I used to drive very slowly, fearfully. But gradually, I learnt to drive perfectly and all of my fear was gone. And now I can drive as rashly as you can imagine without any troubles or fear. So what we learnt from this? What we learnt is that… we should face the fears to get rid of them… ok, i will repeat it again… FACE THE FEARS. If I would not had faced the fear (of starting learning driving), I would have never get rid of my fear of driving car. Same is the case with every fear…. if you don’t face it, you simply won’t overcome it.

2. Develop a kind of attitude like… “It doesn’t matter what happens, and it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of me.”

3. Do not try in a particular situation to have it turn out perfect, but develop your objective so as to learn from a given situation. This will take out the pressure you unnecesarily built on yourself.

Some exercises for you to overcome shyness

1. Breathing Exercises – you may search google for “breathing exercises” and you will find some excellent breathing exercises. Practice those. It will make you get calm and get rid of anxiety.

2. Relaxation Exercises – you may refer to the one I told you above in this article. Or again you may search google for “relaxation techniques” (and practice those) to help you get rid of shyness and anxiety.

3. Pick up a newspaper and read it aloud. It clears your throat and starts projecting your voice rightly.

4. Go out in a mall or some shopping place and ask time from 10-15 people (not necessarily with women). The main concern of this exercise is to kill your social inhibition.

5. Make eye contact with everyone you meet in streets, buses, malls wherever you are. You’ll find there’s an itch, nervousness in your stomach. You want to look away.. But DON’T. You are not supposed to look away until the other person does. When you look into other people’s eyes, don’t stare… Just look into their eyes softly. Keep a smiling face.

Some Tips to help you cope up with shyness

Don’t try to speak too fast. Be calm.

Don’t be under pressure. Remember you don’t have to do anything special, just simply do what the situation says to do.

Feeling stuck up?? First of all… just chill. The secret to knowing what to say is learning what to feel. According to the experts, if you feel positive, feelings of fear will not interfere with your ability to think of something to say.

Shy people often keep on building emotions inside them… they do not express themselves which lead to various symptoms of shyness. So, always try to express your feelings…. don’t let them grow it. VENT OUT YOUR EMOTIONS… this is ultra important… don’t let them grow inside… after all, you are a human being (who is full of emotions and has full rights to express them).

Indulge yourself in a social hobby. Get out of your home and always be ready to meet new people.

When something happens that upsets you, think about it for a minute or two, then get over it and take your lesson from it.

Ok, you may say shyness is a part of your genetic make up, but believe me the learned behaviour is much more powerful.

Some quotes

Your state of mind creates the state of your results.

You are what you think.