How to overcome shyness? How to stop being shy and withdrawn? Exercises and advice from psychologists

Any per­son in some life sit­u­a­tion may expe­ri­ence awk­ward­ness and stiff­ness when com­mu­ni­cat­ing with strangers or unfa­mil­iar peo­ple. For some, shy­ness even­tu­al­ly becomes a char­ac­ter trait.

The mech­a­nism of shy­ness is most often turned on, when a per­son is in a cir­cle of mem­bers of the oppo­site sex, strangers, per­sons in author­i­ty or peo­ple of oth­er age groups. Even close friends and par­ents can dri­ve a per­son into the paint. Exter­nal caus­es are any sit­u­a­tions relat­ed to com­mu­ni­ca­tion, espe­cial­ly when a sub­ject capa­ble of expe­ri­enc­ing timid­i­ty is in the cen­ter of atten­tion.. For exam­ple, when deliv­er­ing a speech in a forced speak­er, the heart begins to beat strong­ly, the face turns red, and a slight stut­ter appears. In deal­ing with unfa­mil­iar peo­ple, such a per­son may show exces­sive mod­esty for fear of receiv­ing pub­lic cen­sure.

Shy peo­ple are high­ly depen­dent on the opin­ions of oth­ers.. They have low self-esteem, so ele­men­tary com­mu­ni­ca­tion with oth­ers often leads the sub­ject to stress. It is dif­fi­cult for a shy per­son to make a phone call to obtain the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion or to com­mu­ni­cate with a sales assis­tant. Clamped indi­vid­u­als focus on their own short­com­ings and do not see their own mer­its.

Usu­al­ly shy­ness begins to form in child­hood. Shy­ness can be passed on to a child auto­mat­i­cal­ly from shy par­ents. If the father and moth­er have this qual­i­ty, then the baby per­ceives it as the norm. In oth­er fam­i­lies, it is cus­tom­ary to con­stant­ly crit­i­cize and humil­i­ate their chil­dren, and they become iso­lat­ed.

Con­stant parental pro­hi­bi­tions, exces­sive demands also lead the child to exces­sive stiff­ness. The rea­sons for the appear­ance of timid­i­ty may be stereo­types. Often, par­ents have high hopes for the baby, praise him. In the future, he is afraid to destroy their illu­sion and is afraid to express his thoughts aloud, to defend his own point of view.

Peo­ple who are not con­fi­dent in their own abil­i­ties often have a feel­ing of embar­rass­ment and timid­i­ty in the com­pa­ny. It hap­pens due to fear of pos­si­ble crit­i­cal remarks addressed to him and low self-esteem. Some are ready to hang unrea­son­able labels on them­selves. For exam­ple, some­one noticed that dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion he breaks sweat, he begins to con­sid­er him­self a ner­vous per­son. It seems to a per­son that oth­ers notice his ner­vous­ness. Each sub­se­quent per­for­mance makes this per­son even more ner­vous. An unrea­son­able assump­tion leads away from the true cause and leads to biased self-esteem.

Some feel shame and embar­rass­ment due to psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma. They want to pro­tect them­selves from sit­u­a­tions that cause stiff­ness in the future, and with­draw into them­selves. Often, the habit of spend­ing most of your time alone with your­self leads to inter­nal tight­ness. A per­son grad­u­al­ly los­es com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. In this case, a large crowd of peo­ple caus­es pan­ic and a desire to hide in a qui­et famil­iar place.

Many shy peo­ple find it dif­fi­cult to over­come their shy­ness. For­tu­nate­ly, this char­ac­ter trait can be cor­rect­ed. You just need to express a desire to change and make efforts to stop being a shy per­son. Pri­mar­i­ly, you have to learn to respect your­self.

Peo­ple with low self-esteem suf­fer from prej­u­dice. Shy peo­ple per­ceive any refusal at their own expense.

Timid per­son­al­i­ties are pas­sive and less pop­u­lar. It is not sur­pris­ing that a mod­est girl can be observed reject­ing any com­pli­ments addressed to her. The young lady is sure that kind words have noth­ing to do with her, but just those around want to please the girl. Such peo­ple are hyper­sen­si­tive to crit­i­cism. With severe shy­ness, self-esteem is always reduced. Real­ize your own strengths, set your­self wor­thy goals. Self-respect instills inner con­fi­dence and peace.

If in an adult shy­ness was formed in child­hood due to a kind of con­tact with par­ents, then you need to under­stand that moth­er and father tried to edu­cate them as best they could. They gave as much warmth and love as they could. Do not blame them for this and men­tal­ly tor­ment your­self. Leave child­hood in the past, now it is in your pow­er to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the events that take place. Don’t be afraid to make the wrong deci­sion. You need to con­sid­er your mis­takes as invalu­able expe­ri­ence.

The state of inner con­straint can be over­come with the help of some actions.

• Sports and spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment help to stop being a shy per­son and get rid of iso­la­tion. A good phys­i­cal shape rais­es self-esteem, so attend­ing sports sec­tions leads to inner eman­ci­pa­tion and allows a per­son to over­come self-doubt. It is nec­es­sary to read fic­tion and edu­ca­tion­al lit­er­a­ture, attend the­mat­ic lec­tures and sem­i­nars. It is nec­es­sary to accept all invi­ta­tions from friends to vis­it con­certs, cin­e­mas, exhi­bi­tions and any enter­tain­ment events.
• Closed peo­ple are rec­om­mend­ed to com­mu­ni­cate with strangers. Set a goal to meet a new per­son at least once every 10 days. First, you should look for friends through social net­works. Then you need to make attempts to meet in crowd­ed places. Once in line by chance, be sure to start a con­ver­sa­tion with the per­son stand­ing next to you.
• You can fight inner stiff­ness by doing some kind of dar­ing act.. For exam­ple, try sky­div­ing, take part in motor­sports, take part in a pub­lic speak­ing, beau­ty pageant. Put on extrav­a­gant clothes, get a new hair­cut, dye your hair a bright col­or. Become a vol­un­teer, attend var­i­ous char­i­ty events. Invite some­one of the oppo­site sex to the the­atre, plan­e­tar­i­um, or ski­ing.

To elim­i­nate the exist­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in com­mu­ni­cat­ing a clamped per­son, you should pay atten­tion to some fac­tors.

• Feel­ing analy­sis. Rec­og­nize that there is a prob­lem. Try to remem­ber when you first began to feel shy and awk­ward in a rela­tion­ship. Obsta­cles in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with oth­ers can be elim­i­nat­ed by accept­ing your­self as a per­son. Dis­re­spect for one’s own per­son leads to inse­cu­ri­ty and shy­ness.
• Per­son­al devel­op­ment. Any indi­vid­ual needs con­stant self-improve­ment. Read­ing books, vis­it­ing muse­ums and the­aters, tak­ing cours­es devel­ops a sense of self-worth and instills the nec­es­sary con­fi­dence.
• Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty. An impor­tant point is the aware­ness of its inner essence. You need to remem­ber all your tal­ents and fea­tures that dis­tin­guish you from oth­er peo­ple. Feel free to show them to oth­ers. They form the basis of the for­ma­tion of your per­son­al­i­ty.
• The art of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The pres­ence of com­mon inter­ests and hob­bies expands the cir­cle of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. You need to learn how to strike up a con­ver­sa­tion with oth­ers. Do not shy away from the peo­ple you are inter­est­ed in, try to get to know them, start close inter­ac­tion. If nec­es­sary, take a pub­lic speak­ing course.

It is dif­fi­cult for shy peo­ple to build roman­tic rela­tion­ships, achieve heights in the pro­fes­sion­al field, and solve some every­day tasks. Often com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the oppo­site sex does not work out because of a bad rela­tion­ship with one of their own par­ents. Psy­chol­o­gists rec­om­mend estab­lish­ing con­tact with the father and moth­er, rec­on­cil­ing with them.

You can become an open girl by show­ing inter­est in the sto­ries of your com­pan­ion, smil­ing and approv­ing head nods. Ask your cho­sen one lead­ing ques­tions, do not be afraid to talk about your­self, share your expe­ri­ence, inter­est­ing sto­ries with him. Accept his invi­ta­tions to cafes, cin­e­mas and walks. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, focus your atten­tion on him, not on your­self. Don’t think that your every move is being mon­i­tored con­tin­u­ous­ly.

Stop self­ish­ness. Write down all your pos­i­tive qual­i­ties in a note­book and con­cen­trate on them through­out the day, increas­ing self-esteem and self-con­fi­dence. Declare war on exces­sive self-crit­i­cism. Don’t focus on the neg­a­tives. Be friend­ly with peo­ple around you.

You can attend spe­cial train­ings to over­come their fears and gain faith in their own strengths. An impor­tant point is the exclu­sion of the very thought of the pres­ence of timid­i­ty. You need to choose the exact words to describe your state in typ­i­cal sit­u­a­tions and make a com­plete list of your own reac­tions. Then cor­rect them and write down the mod­i­fied ver­sion.

There are spe­cial exer­cis­es that allow you to cor­rect anx­i­ety and remove inter­nal tight­ness.

• Smile at passers-by on the street, look them straight in the eye, do not hide your gaze. At first it will be very dif­fi­cult, but over­com­ing your inner “I” will grad­u­al­ly help you cope with inse­cu­ri­ties and inte­grate into soci­ety. First, prac­tice at home in front of a mir­ror, then smile more often at friends and rel­a­tives. Start your morn­ing with an open smile. She relieves ten­sion. After that, you can start smil­ing around.
• The next exer­cise involves elim­i­nat­ing awk­ward­ness when com­mu­ni­cat­ing with strangers. Through­out the day, ask ran­dom passers-by how to get to some point of inter­est or ask a short ques­tion: “Can you tell me what time it is?” Be sure to include a diverse pop­u­la­tion. Address school­child­ren, young ladies and men, mature peo­ple and very old peo­ple: old women and old men. Then com­pli­cate the task and ask again, pre­tend­ing that you did not hear the answer.
• You can learn to behave con­fi­dent­ly by return­ing the pur­chased goods back to the point of sale. Buy some­thing first. After a few min­utes, return to the store and tell the sell­er that you have changed your mind and want to return the pur­chased item. Do not give in to any per­sua­sion! The sell­er is oblig­ed to refund you the mon­ey for the goods. Con­quer­ing embar­rass­ment is helped by con­tact­ing 5 trad­ing points per day in order to pur­chase and return an unnec­es­sary item.