Expanding possibilities

Connecting with others is very important to me and yet, I often feel shy. Here are some thoughts that have helped me.

Everyone feels shy at time

When we feel grief we are allowing a part of us to honour something we have lost. When we feel shy, we allow sensitive and intimate parts of ourselves to be honoured. This is natural and beautiful, part of the richness of life experience. Those people who never feel shy may have other ways to do this or they may have no awareness of those parts of themselves.

Some are more shy than others, of course, and, isn’t it wonderful that we are all different? Life would be boring if we were not.

One way we differ are the circumstances when we feel most shy. Some, for example, feel safer with some anonymity (in an internet chat room, for example). Others are happy to be seen but do not like to speak in public. Still others, are shy about initiating touch or other connection.

So it’s not that we ‘are shy’, rather that we feel shy at times. Like all feelings, feeling shy is useful information. We know to be gentle with ourselves, to respect that we are close to what is, for us, an edge. When we accept and value our shy feelings, we do not have to be ‘painfully’ shy, we can be joyfully or peacefully shy.

Connecting

We all long for connection. Those who are frequently shy may have fewer connections than others but rather than quantity, it is quality and depth of connection that we really long for.

Activities

Taking part in activities which attract or interest you can make it easier to get to know people. Some kind of activities allow for a depth of connection. When we move with people in the way Suprapto teaches, for example, we get to know them in a deep way without words. Some groups (such as the Friends of the Western Buddhist order) value community and friendship highly so, if you can find one such group that suits you, your moves towards connection are likely to be rewarded.

Ultimately though, we want to connect and deepen connections in many different circumstances. One way we can always help ourselves is through focusing our attention wisely.

What to focus on

Connecting from my heart. One thing that shyness does not affect is our hearts. When we first connect with others from our hearts, we also tend to feel less shy with them. Be sure to connect in other ways too, however. It is all too easy to stay alone, kid ourselves that we are connecting at a deep level and wonder why we feel lonely and isolated.

What I want in life, how I want it to be, what interests me …

Skills I want to develop. All of life is a journey, or a series of journeys. If I want to feel comfortable initiating touch, for example, I have to make a start on that journey.

Empowering references. No one is 100% shy. We all have moments when it felt a little easier. Instead of reinforcing shyness as a problem with phrases like ‘crippling shyness’ or ‘too’ shy, I bring these moments to mind. This is easier once I have stored them away mentally in a place I can easily and quickly refer to them (and keep adding more).

Other people. When people speak in public and focus on their experience or performance, not surprisingly, they feel self conscious. When they focus more on what the ‘audience’ or other person wants or needs, they feel less self conscious. Connecting requires some focus on the other person.

Additionally, we may be concerned about how others view us or something about us while they are more concerned about some aspect of themselves. I once told people something I so feared being judged about that the words stuck in my throat and it took several attempts to speak. A few months later, one of them couldn’t even remember what it was.

Taking myself lightly.

Ask questions, but not exclusively. The easiest way to focus on the other person is to ask them questions but this can be intense and tiring for the other person. When in doubt, I aim for balance

What have you found useful?

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 3:55 pm and is filed under connecting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.