ONCE YOU HAVE begun the journey of transforming your shyness into strength, and you gain confidence in yourself around other people, you will experience a new phenomenon. By embracing your shyness as a part of who you are (and not the entirety), you will be better able to allow other parts of yourself to emerge. The playful, the childlike, and the wise and perhaps eccentric aspects of your personality will no longer be suppressed out of fear of rejection or shame.
For an old habit to change, there must first be the recognition that it is something that is not only no longer serving you, but is actually deterring you from the type of life and connection to others you long for. As with any habit, once you have made the commitment to change, you must call upon your willpower to assist you in manifesting this transformation.
Negative thinking about oneself is not easy to ignore. These self-defeating thoughts have the power of years invested in them. And you may find replacing the negative with the positive a daunting task. But the more you practice this, the easier it will be to “talk back” to self-defeating thoughts.
Acting As If
An important tool you can use to assist your negative Thought Stopping (see following exercise) is “Acting As If.” Suppose you are nervous about speaking before a group. The first task here is to be knowledgeable and confident in the material you are about to present. When you Act As If, you actually take on the role you would like to present yourself as. If you would like to Act As If…“I am confident and in control in this situation,” you would then imagine yourself in front of a group, delivering your speech with clarity and command.
Acting As If, as it is used here, is precisely that. You play a part or role. You consciously choose to step outside yourself for the time being and adopt the persona you desire to convey, in order to achieve your goals. This technique can be used in any situation. You can Act As If…“I am happy to be at this dinner party.” You can Act As If…“I believe I am interesting and engaging company.” Acting As If is most helpful in the early stages of the Thought Stopping practice and you may want to combine the two techniques. As you train your mind to shift from negative to positive thinking, you may find it helpful to choose to act in a positive and different way. This technique, although sometimes difficult for the extremely shy, is an excellent way to accelerate your mind’s acceptance of the transformation from shy to shy-strong that you are committed to achieving.
Acting As If does not mean you are going to be portraying or will be perceived as a phony or poser. It simply means you are “trying on” the personality you wish to ultimately project when in the company of others and in specific situations.
You walk into a party and a negative thought starts to form in your mind: “I don’t know these people. No one will talk to me, and I’ll be miserable all evening.”
To stop that thought, imagine a door. The door can be made of anything you choose—carved mahogany, two-foot-thick steel, marble, a velvet curtain…anything you feel will be most effective in keeping the self-defeating thoughts securely banished from your desire and willingness to create a positive attitude.
Now that you’ve stopped the negative thought from coming in, you are free to choose a more positive thought/interpretation: “I don’t know many people here, so of course they are not going to just come up to me. After all, I am not going up to them. I’ll find someone here I know and sit with that person until I feel more comfortable.”