We toss around the “shy” label quite liberally. Many of us apply that label to ourselves to explain away our social ineptitude and nervousness around others. The danger of using “shy” to explain these behaviors is that we’re not diagnosing the real problem, nor are we getting closer to a solution. In a recent counselling session a young woman raised the question of how to tackle her “shy” problem. My response is applicable to a wide variety of shyness issues.

“All my life I’ve been shy. I have a couple of friends I feel comfortable around, but otherwise I’m very quiet. I hardly ever talk to people at school or church or anywhere. Now I’m in my third year of college, and I’m taking some classes where participation is a big part of my grade. Some people in class talk all the time, and I feel stupid sitting there saying nothing. Sometimes I try to talk, but I stumble all over my tongue. What can I do? I feel stuck.”

Your problem is very common. When you say you’re shy, what you really mean is that you're afraid that if other people see who you really are---if you speak up and let them learn more about you---they won't like you. They might even laugh at you. So you hide who you are by not talking. The thing we’re all most afraid of is that people won’t love us, and if there’s a possibility that people won’t love us in a given situation, we tend to avoid that situation. When we do that consistently, it’s called shy.

So here’s the irony: The reason you don’t talk is so people won’t withdrawn their love from you. But what happens when you don’t talk? Nobody can see you, so you feel alone and unloved. Whenever you protect yourself from not feeling loved, you feel alone and unloved---the very thing you were trying to protect yourself from. Until you see that your shyness has been keeping you alone and miserable, you can’t do anything about it. So now what can you do to think and behave differently?

First, remember that your situation at school isn’t really about getting the right answer or a good grade. You need to start sharing who you are with people because it’s the only way you’ll ever feel unconditionally accepted and loved and genuinely happy. You can’t feel accepted until people see who you really are, and that can’t happen until you speak up and share yourself with them.

Second, you need to see the real risks of speaking up and not speaking up. Let’s say you had an illness that was certain to kill you. There’s a medication that will cure you, but it has a few unpleasant side effects. Would you be willing to take it anyway? Sure you would, because in the face of certain death, how can you lose? You are in that situation now. Your shyness is killing your happiness, and and I know that you have fears of speaking up, but you need to see that the risks of speaking are nothing compared to the risks of not speaking. If you stay quiet, you’re guaranteed not to feel seen, accepted, or loved. The only way you can find people who unconditionally accept you is to talk more---in class and everywhere else.

Third, I know you’re afraid of looking stupid when you speak, so it might help you to admit that you are stupid. We’re all stupid, at different times and about different things. It’s the human condition. In five years, I’ll know more than I know now, right? Hope so. So relative to what I’ll know in five years, what does that make me now? Stupid. We’ve got to stop avoiding that word. We can’t avoid making mistakes while we’re in the process of learning, and if we try to avoid ever making those mistakes, we’ll never learn anything. Dive in and make all the mistakes you can. Until you do, you can’t learn that they won’t kill you. And you’ll learn from them.

Fourth, right now you are a prisoner to your fears, and that’s not a great way to live. The only way to overcome this fear is to go through it, and you can do it.

It’s a fact that when you speak, some people will think less of you, but so what? Those people would never have accepted you unconditionally anyway. And as you make the conscious decision to speak despite your fears, you will find people who will accept you just as you are. That’s a pretty great feeling. So make a conscious decision to start speaking to people---not just in class, but everywhere---and you’ll begin to experience the acceptance and rich happiness you’ve been looking for. You don’t have to share everything about yourself all at once, but you do need to start. Speak in class, tell the people around you what you enjoy, speak up when you don’t like something. Feel free to look stupid and remember that you have nothing to lose---you don’t like where you are now and there’s only one way out.

The world is literally dying from a lack of the one thing essential for our happiness—Real Love. We spend our entire lives trying to replace that unconditional love with praise, power, sex, money, entertainment, safety, and so on. But it never works, and the resulting emptiness and fear are almost too much to bear.

We don’t have to live like this anymore. Greg Baer and RealLove.com are teaching (1) the real cause of fear and anger and (2) how to find this Real Love that replaces the fear, anger, and conflict in our lives with peace, confidence, and genuine happiness.

Dr. Greg Baer
http://www.RealLove.com