For most of my life, especially into my adult years, I have been annoyingly and painstakingly shy. Opening up to new people and connecting with total strangers is a foreign art form that I don't think I will manage to master in my entire lifetime (not that I necessarily want to). But the state of my shyness has left me in a curious position at 22 years old. Most of my high school friends are on complete different paths with their education and careers which has made it somewhat impossible for us to be friends the way we used to be. Their not-so-shy ways have landed them new friends while my socially awkward and overall socially uncomfortable self has become more and more isolated these past 2 years or so.
My current state has really got my brain churning about shyness. When I started to become blatantly aware of my shyness, I felt like I had to change it. I had to be more outgoing and crazy and vivacious. There was in essence something wrong with being shy and shyness was something to be ashamed of and angry at myself for. I spent a very large amount of time feeling like I had to "fix" my shy self so that I could be more accepted by other people. These past 2 years have been a huge journey of me trying to understand myself and the person that I am, so recently, I have really begun to question why I think and feel that shyness is something for me to change at all.
When I delved into a deep brainstorm about why I approached shyness as some sort of disease that I needed to find a magical cure for, I started thinking about how shy people are perceived by others and how they are portrayed by media (movies, TV shows, books, etc.). I think that in a lots of way shyness has been directly linked to thoughts of being dull, boring, and uninteresting. The shy girl in the cheesy high school movies is often odd, strange, and disliked by her peers. She's certainly not invited to any of the 'cool' parties. The outgoing girl on the other hand is beautiful, popular, and desirable. She's at every party and is the center of attention. In actual high schools, the shy girl is often described by others as boring. I know that when I was in high school, there were a number of people who told me how boring I was straight to my face. In their "joking" ways, they would spout of incredibly annoying sayings such as "Gahhh you're so boring, just open up a little" or
"Lighten up & stop being so serious" etc. This made me feel insecure about my shy nature, which ONLY MADE ME MORE SHY.
The media and society tend to screw up and distort and manipulate just about every subject that has ever been and will ever be so I threw out everything about shyness that had somehow flown into my ears and marinated in my brain for all these years. I wanted to look at the nature of being shy, what it is and what it isn't, and formulate my own understanding of it and how it relates to me and other people. This is what I have come to understand:
1. Shyness is a balance of nature and nurture.
Shyness is partly genetic. It's woven into the tiny little intricate DNA structures that make me who I am in this very moment. Shyness is an inherent part of my personality. But as with most aspects of mine and your personalities, it was fostered and influenced by life experience. I was bullied when I was younger which I believe led me to blossoming into my full blown shy self as an adult. But it did become important for me to realize that my shyness is part of who I am. I am simply a shy person and that is neither a good or bad thing.
2. SHY PEOPLE ARE NOT BORING.
I believed for most of my life that since I was shy, I was boring. But without sounding like I'm tooting my own horn too loudly... I am NOT boring. I have a curious and vastly interesting mind that loves to learn and create. I have many opinions and I can get into some of the deepest conversations with those I am close with. I do struggle with things like small talk because in all honestly, small talk bores the hell out of me. And I'm just not super open to talking to new people. That's just the way it is. But this does not mean that I am boring. Just because I don't share with people often and I don't open up myself to conversation doesn't mean there isn't a whole lot of interesting happening in my brain.
Some of the shyest people I have personally met are often some of the most interesting. If you peel back some of their layers, you'll find amazing and intriguing things they have to share and some really unique views they have on life.
3. I don't have to change.
I have finally come to a place where I realize being shy is something I don't have to change. IT IS OKAY TO BE SHY. And I know that if I have felt ashamed about being shy, then I know someone, somewhere else in the world has too. And if that's you, I want you to know that you are perfect the way you are and you don't have to spend all this energy trying to change something that doesn't even need changing. It is okay to be shy!
4. Accepting my own shyness has actually made me less shy.
The most unexpected thing that happened on this endeavor of contemplating my shy self was that once I was okay with being shy and once I accepted it as a part of who I was and probably forever will be, I actually became less shy. Since I had been fighting my shyness all these years, I had created this inflamed and overly dramatic emphasis on being shy which fed this growing insecurity about it. Funny thing happens when you become insecure about your shyness... you become MORE shy. I was finally able to let go of that insecurity about the whole thing and thus, it has made me feel more comfortable just being me. I don't have to try to be something I'm not. I can now just enjoy my time around others instead of being sucked into my crazy brain and the whirlwind of thoughts about what I'm going to say and what I'm not and being scared to sound stupid. Though my shyness is not gone completely, by simply accepting it, I have been less shy.
So basically this long post is simply to communicate with anyone, anywhere who is shy and insecure about it... that it is OKAY and you aren't alone. I challenge you to accept your shy nature and see how much better it feels to not have to constantly fight it or feel like you have to change it. Quickly, I want to add that if you are not shy, but know someone who is shy, DON'T point out their shyness. Shy people know they're shy and they don't need you bringing it up as a focus of conversation. That is literally the last thing in the whole universe they want to discuss. Just let them be, and if they feel comfortable to join a conversation, they will!
xoxo,
Paige
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