by Ulla Sarja

Created on: May 19, 2008

Some people think they are born shy and to be shy is some kind of destiny they have to accept. There may be several reasons for that.
Most often the reason can be found far back in the persons childhood and teen years.
When you were a little girl or boy and felt powerless against your parents, it maybe happened something, just a little thing that made you feel uncomfortable. It could be your parents laughing for something you did, they maybe did not mean to be cruel but you felt it like that.

You felt you a "bad" boy or girl and no one told you the opposite.
When children are four-five years old they use to very sensitive for things like that.
When you came older you had already forgot the whole story but there was something that made you feel uncomfortable in certain situations. The feeling use to be worse if the child does not tell about his feelings and get his self-image corrected.
Then maybe there is a similar situation when the child is teen ager and the fear has suddenly changed to phobia.
This means that the fear suddenly can not be explained; the person becomes shy and feels, without no reason that people are laughing at him. This can in extremely case lead to dropping out from school or job.

Then what to do?
Often a person needs help when managing the situation. The person has to understand that the feeling of powerless is not a real feeling. The person has to understand that he is no longer powerless but the "little person" inside is the powerless one. And the little person does not exist any more. If we want, we can call the little person "id", the powerful person "super ego" and the person self "ego". These are actually Freudian terms but we can use them to explain the situation.
So what you are going to do is to tell superego that he is not right, tell id that he actually is making things bigger than they are and give the commando to ego.

Mental training is one way to do it. This can be done alone or with someone else.
It takes some weeks or maybe some months but it is going to work.
When training mentally you have to listen positive affirmations daily. And not just listen; you are going to become the affirmation. You have to live in the affirmation, every hour, every day.
This means that you are doing things you feel frightening. You begin with the small things and go to the bigger fears.
And believe me; there is going to be a day when you are surprised about you self.
The person who felt shy is freely talking with other persons, maybe standing in front of hundreds of people and talking. So be patient, this is going to be possible.

So what you are going to do now is to find a mental trainer, or a CD with exercises. And you are ready to begin. Believe me; after some months you are feeling better.
But you have to begin today, tomorrow never comes.
Good luck!

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