great e-mail I'd like to share with you

[spiridon]

You know, i've just received this e-mail in a shyness support network, and let me tell you- lately I've been doing exactly what this guy's been doing and he hit the nail right on the head! Here's the full text:

Look I am sorry that I have to be a little strong on this but believe me, you do not need any medicine. The cure to this fake sickness is in yourself and it is as simple as this; learn to love yourself! Sound too simple for you to accept? Yes, It took me more that four years and lots of agony, lots of prayer and fasting to get the answer.
The steps you should follow are these, Buy yourself a large mirror, and look yourself up and try to see the beauty in you. Mind you, look only at the beauty in you, now accept that you are beautiful and knowledgeable and desirable and...and...,all positives. Mind you, this is true, you are beautiful. However, for so long you have been full of criticism of yourself, how you look, how you feel, how awkward you are and so and so forth...all negatives that it has become you.
Now start by praising yourself and try a step at a time to build up your confidence. While at it, if you are the religious type, fast. If not read novels of adventures, of detectives or intrigues. I can recommend a few like Robert Ludlum, Sydney Sheldon, Jackie Collins etc, anything to take off your mind from that ever present and overpowering demon called shyness.

Now whenever you are face to face with situation that provokes these panic attacks or shyness, allow yourself some vanity, tell yourself that you know that you are beautiful, and that above all you love yourself and that you are worthy of love and raise up your head to the person or situation and really allow yourself to relax in the comfort of love and trust me, all your fears will fly away.

Before I go though I should let you know that you should also stop seeing fault in others at every trick and turn. Learn to love your neighbor, really really love even mother nature.

Remember one of the Ten Commandments recommends that you should your neighbor as YOU LOVE YOURSELF!, "LOVE YOURSELF FIRST!!!"

So the key is first self love, when you have this, then your self confidence will start to grow and one day you'll remember this mail and you will pray for me.

Before you can really know the meaning of this letter, you must have had your first success at it, then you will feel like flying, and the joy of living and life will flow into you so overwhelmingly that you will move mountains. Trust me.

Need to talk about this any further, Do not hesitate to e-mail me at [e-mail] or [e-mail]
My name is Michael, I am an IT company director living in Ireland. I am STRAIGHT, black and very proud of it.

WISH YOU EXCELLENT LUCK


Spiridon's addition: if you have a genuine social anxiety disorder or social phobia, this might not work for you. In that case, you would need professional help. However, if your shyness was environmentally caused, like mine was, maybe it's time to start seeing the beauty in yorself. Remember, if you are looking for love, first and foremost love that good-looking guy/gal staring at you from the mirror. I'm totally serious!

[shylurker]

spiridon, thank you so much for sharing that!

Mine was environmentally caused, and it feels like I cannot escape it wherever I go.

Anyway, thanks so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is so true. Everybody tells me I need to stop being down on myself all the time.

Thanks

[HAZE]

can someone tell me what you mean by the environment is that the people around you or just dirty air you mean?
HAZE of uk

[spiridon]

By environment I mean that for some reason you were convinced that you are inferior and unwanted and don't deserve to be with other people. Could be due to overly strict parents and teachers or cruel classmates. The point is, change your perception of other people from "They will do me a huge favor if they talk to me because I am unworthy of their attention" into "It would be a priviledge for them to talk to me and get to know me because I am a very interesting person. If they don't talk to me, it's their loss." Number one, you ARE an interesting person, you just fail to notice it. Just focus on the positives in your life instead of being overly concerned with the negatives(in fact, write down a list of positives in your life and then read it carefully with appreciation). Shy people tend to exaggerate their flaws and minimise their accomplishments. You gotta do just the opposite to stop letting shyness control you.
Number two, liking yourself has nothing to do with selfishness or lack of modesty. On the contrary, you will enjoy helping other people out and giving them the gift of yourself instead of concealing yourself from them.
Also, once you start liking yourself,you will immediately notice that other people like you too. Because you will start to notice that there are plenty of nice and friendly people around you, as well as stop paying much attention to the mean and cruel people. Remember, shy people's beliefs ("everybody is against me, they don't like me, they dismiss me because I'm shy, the whole society dismisses me") have little to do with facts and are based completely on PERCEPTIONS.

[shylurker]

Spiridon, Can I ask, are you shy? You don't sound it

What is this mailing list anyway? Is it regular? I should join it!

[Spiridon]

Good question, shylurker! I was very shy jut a couple months ago, but now I think I started to change and become more confident. I've been getting online therapy and I think it really helped me a lot. By the way, it's good to think in positives instead of negatives, i.e instead of "I want to be less shy" think "I want to be more confident with people." I just suddenly realized that many people around me are nice and friendly, so there is really no reason for me to avoid them. It's a wonderful realization, really. The mailing list is on shyness.censorshipfree.com (no www). Click on Support Buddy Locator, then enter your e-mail and a short message about yourself.

[Nicole]

Hmmm.....it's genetic for me. It runs in my family, and I've been this way since I was born.

Through the years, I feel like I've overcome most of my "shyness" but I still have problems with social anxiety. I think I'm pretty friendly and outgoing (so I'm told), but there are certain symptoms that are still there.

[spitzig]

Nicole said:

Hmmm.....it's genetic for me. It runs in my family, and I've been this way since I was born.

That does not mean it's genetic. It's possible you learned the habits, thought patterns, etc. from your family, starting from a very early age.

However, studies have been done connecting reactions from a fetus to very young children(who would have less time to learn to be shy) being shy. And, studies connect childrens' shyness to adults' shyness. Just correlations, not one-to-one relationships. So, if a fetus is "shy", that doesn't necessarily mean the adult will be.

I tend to think it's better to think of shyness in terms of social conditioning. Because, it's definitely possible to change thoughts(though not easy). Only some of the biological things are changeable.

[Nicole]

Regardless of whether it's "better" to think of things as social conditioning, I don't think it was that with me. I mean, really, how can you "learn" something like blushing? I didn't even know my mom did until I talked to her about it. I've never seen her blush; apparently she only did when she was younger (before I was born).

Additionally, I was raised mostly by my dad, who is extremely outgoing. He's both a teacher and a motivational speaker.

I think environmental factors were an important component that certainly worsened my SAD, but I think the predisposition was there to begin with (at least in my particular case, not for everyone).

Also, you seem to differentiate between "thought patterns" and "biology" and I don't think they are necessarily separable. I think they are more connected than we admit. I'm not saying that one can't change, though. I think both thought patterns and biology are changeable; I just don't think you can separate the two. Hey, I'm a materialist. ;D