Hypnotherapy to Help with Excessive Shyness: by Dublin based hypnotherapist Ailish McGrath

Shyness

The Three Components of Shyness

According to Dr. Bernardo J. Carducci of the Shyness Research Institute, shyness has three components:
 

1)Excessive Self-Consciousness – you are overly aware of yourself, particularly in social situations.
2)Excessive Negative Self-Evaluation – you tend to see yourself negatively.
3)Excessive Negative Self-Preoccupation – you tend to pay too much attention to all the things you are doing wrong when you are around other people.
 

Why do we feel shy?

Habit or identification: We may have got the label of ‘Shy’ when we were small and took the label as our identity. People interacted with us expecting us to act shy and it became the way we got used to behaving socially. It then became a habit or something we expected to feel and act like. It may never have occurred to us that we weren’t ‘shy’ (we may have just been a little slower to mingle, or highly intuitive and taking in a lot of information or perhaps we just weren’t interested in being with the people we were with… etc) and it may never have been the case that we were encouraged to act in any other way. Like any habit though – acting and feeling shy can be changed.
 

Negative / comparative self assessment: We may feel shy because we have negative and limiting beliefs about ourselves. We may fell it’s unlikely we will be liked or included. We may fear we have little of interest to contribute. We may feel intimidated by more flamboyant personalities. We may have poor self esteem, lack a feeling of confidence or have unresolved issues around mixing with the opposite sex, authority figures or people of different social backgrounds to us.
 

What’s the purpose of shyness?

The purpose of acting shy can be so that we prevent ourselves from making a mistake, looking foolish to others or causing ourselves embarrassment if we were to speak up or act more extrovertly.
 

It can also be a way to gain support from someone else or to hide behind a ‘stronger character’.
 

The purpose and habit of acting shy can be changed.

If the feeling of shyness is something you find uncomfortable and wish to change there is help available. There are effective ways to improve self esteem, confidence and self belief. Any habit can be released and changed. ‘Small’ identities can be outgrown.