the real me: who am I looking for again?

hi hi. I know this is my first post, but I have read a lot of the existing posts on this forum.
I think it would be fair to state as being accepted, three general rules:

1. The cause of shyness is an underlying insecurity about some aspect of our character- be it physical or mental.

2. Shyness is a problem because of the social impedance it places upon us, particularily with regard to finding/keeping a mate.

3. The treatment strategy must be a self-motivated, "so what?" mentality- that is to say- releasing ourselves from the feeling that we must justify/prove ourselves to others.

For me (with regard to above):
1. I am insecure about my ability to convey the 'real me' in a social interaction with the opposite sex.

2. I therefore fear appearing dull and uninteresting: and it is this fear that incapacitates me and, ironically, realises my fears.

3. For so long there has been speculation about 'coming out of my shell' and 'becoming outgoing'. People always told me that going to university would totally change me as a person. Since I am still single and showing no signs of rectifying this situation, I don't feel that it has.

So what troubles me is this: is there another me, trying to get out from inside the shell, or has my shyness become an essential part of who I am? I don't seem to be able to say 'so what' no matter how hard I try- either that, or my brain says it, but my body doesn't follow. How the hell do you override your autonomic nervous system? Am I secretly in love with my lonliness? Am I just too chickenshit to try and change myself? Why the hell do women never do the approaching? Why do I always lead on the girls that I don't find attractive and completely ignore the ones I do?

p.s. sorry about the total breakdown of any kind of logical structure at the end there, but y'know AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

p.s.

hey, i like how u preasented all of that, was pretty straight to the point and logical.

have you ever tried meditation?? i know i know...mumbo jumbo right?? well depends how you look at it.

there is a type of meditation that i would say is actualy quite a pretty main steam way of doing things.

u do the breathin, relaxation blah blah. but the idea is to completely 100% clear your conscience mind. this ent a preaching post by the way but bhuddha tought us that our conscience thought, feeling, out peception etc is not the 'soul' it is merely a force which guides it. according to this theory it would be safe to say that when our 'guide' goes against the wishes of our 'soul', our soul becommes very unhappy. i would say this explains the turmoil your expereincing which has lead you to a point to try and find yourself.

i would honestly try mediation. try and reach the point where your not actualy following a thought process, thoughts comes in, you guide them back out without totally blocking them..just redirecting them as such. and you would not believe how clear things are when you clear your mind.

the thing ive noticed about people with shyness,low self esteem etc is that they have a very big habbit of analysing every thought they have, woundering why they have it, where it came from etc i think we all do this one time or another, but for people with shyness they do it all the time!! your so aware of every thought you have, you havent got time for whats around you. the problem here, is you spend so much time investing in a 'thought' it almost consumes you to the point its doing your head in!

your thinking mind should be used as a guide, your thinking mind should not act as the 100% you. practise the art of the meditation above, master it, and you'll find what your looking for. its sort of a back to basics point.

hope it helps ya

interesting

haha- when I was reading your reply I misread 'meditation' as 'medication'. I was thinking jeez I must be more severe than I thought if this guy is telling me that I should definitely try medication.

But yeah- I do definitely buy into this idea, and have in fact tried it. I am aware however, that it is not a case of simply sit down and meditate- it's one of the hardest things- and apparently takes many years to master fully. But you've reinspired me (if that's a word) to try again. I did feel as though it was working once, but I'm not sure whether I was reaching a meditative state or just falling asleep.

I tried hypnotherapy once, which I assume follows similar principles. I was a bit dissaopointed as I was not able to 'free myself up' or at least 'focus' enough for it to work.

I guess it seems hard because it's kind of 'actively making the mind passive'.

I'll try again though, cheers

Hi Ghost_train. I really like your post and welcome! I agree with Nic (Oh, hey Nicki haha busted). The best way to be yourself is to not think of yourself and meditation can help clear your mind. It's kinda like the fight or flight mode, if you think about it. When you're in this mode you're in a survival mode. You're not thinking "Do I look stupid right now?" or something else to that effect. Your just doing. In effect, your 'guide' and your 'soul' are at one. That's all anyone is really saying too when they say "Just be yourself". You- like me- might respond "But, I don't know who that is!" Just don't think about who that is and you will be being yourself! Sounds easy enough, right!? :wink:

Ghost said:

So what troubles me is this: is there another me, trying to get out from inside the shell, or has my shyness become an essential part of who I am? I don't seem to be able to say 'so what' no matter how hard I try- either that, or my brain says it, but my body doesn't follow. How the hell do you override your autonomic nervous system? Am I secretly in love with my lonliness? Am I just too chickenshit to try and change myself? Why the hell do women never do the approaching? Why do I always lead on the girls that I don't find attractive and completely ignore the ones I do?

Click to expand...

I don't think there's another you, I think there is an uninhibited you wanting to live his life. Your shyness has become an essential part of who you are- right now- but, It doesn't have to be who you are permanently. I don't think you're chicken, either. Changing can be like removing a splinter. The splinter hurts but sometimes removing it can hurt even more. We might be uncomfortable with how we are now but sometimes we're more uncomfortable with trying to change. It can be a very familiar and safe- feeling place, which is hard to leave. Same for the women you talk to and the ones you really want to talk to. Safe. Familiar. Non-threatening. I don't know. Put yourself out there one day. Just walk up to a girl you like w/out thinking and say "Hi". You will quite possibly panic soon after you go up to her (as you will likely become self conscious again) but at least you'll have the rush of excitement when you look back on the few seconds it took to approach her and realize you were Not thinking about yourself! You may even stumble upon some clarity along the way! If you want a pretty good book on this line of thinking try "The Secret of Letting Go" by Guy Finley. It's a simple read and some of the stories may resonate with you, as they did me. Good luck! See ya around!

I started a thread similar to this a while ago called "be yourself". Mine wasn't nearly as well thought out or written so thanks for starting this. Really good replies to.

hey krs2snow lol guilty as charged.

im really glad what i said inspired you mate, i truly am.

also another thought i has which might help is sometimes...the way we view outselfs can be very different to how others view us. usualy were wrong about what others think, because were judging what they think on how, actualy, we think! dunno if that made sense? lol

i think mediation is a good tool for putting your head back in your body, rather than always thinking outside of yourself about what he or she is thinking, rather than what you are thinking. what would he or she think of me if i done this? really we should be thinking what would I think about me if i done this?

when i was younger, about 15? i spent nearly 9 months not saying a word!!! which i doubt anyone would believe now, because before that i was very talkative as well. but alot of that was self induced..., i spent those 9 months pretty much just observing others, 9 months is enough time to internalise that cognitive behaviour, i became very paranoid too. i tried everything!! i wanted to be me again!

in the end, meditation, self hypnosis..that sort of thing is what actualy worked!! i dont think someone saying 'oh when u get a negative thought...challenge it' blah blah is gonna help because your still investing time into that negative thought!!! and totally rejecting it is just avoiding the issue really.

become secure with your insecuritys and things seem to just fall into place to be honest i think, im sure even paris hilton hates one thing about herself!

i still have odd days where i feel like crap, and i feel abit introverted, paranoid etc but as time goes on the odd days become less often and u learn to just think oh bollox, put my pjs on and watch a film lol

all the best with the meditation though mate!! hope you find what u need to find xxxx

Is that a papaya?

papaya?? you mean is that a yes?? yeh it is lol

papaya? oh I thought it was a mango. err hmmm maybe I want to rethink the message that I'm sending out

i do think its a mango actualy now u mention it

Umm ... what message does a papaya send?

(pretty sure it's a mango, btw, I just like the word papaya! haha lol)

I was just joshing (or kidding, as the US? seems to prefer) around. I hope it doesn't send any kind of message- last thing I want is a mango doing the talking for me.

I was also joshing about the UK preferring the word 'joshing'. no one says that...

8O 8O Ghost_train! Is that a penis? LOL! And I thought the papaya/mango was funny! Haha!

penis? er... I have to ask- what the hell sort of guys have you been seeing? I would have thought a penis shaped like (a hand-carved wax tooth with minimal class 2 cavity- very proud of it) would be sufficient grounds for breakup alone.

But to be fair, my avatar was either going to be this or a giant penis, so I guess we all got lucky...

a hand-carved wax tooth with minimal class 2 cavity

Click to expand...

Erm, really? O.K. Well, that's the longest tooth I've ever seen! Still, looks a bit like a freshly wanked penis from this angle. :wink: Sorry, mate, no offense to your creation! Maybe the top-angle view is distorting my perception. (I love the UK!)

P.S. You know I'm JJ you, right?

krs2snow said:

a hand-carved wax tooth with minimal class 2 cavity

Click to expand...

Erm, really? O.K. Well, that's the longest tooth I've ever seen! Still, looks a bit like a freshly wanked penis from this angle. :wink: Sorry, mate, no offense to your creation! Maybe the top-angle view is distorting my perception. (I love the UK!)

P.S. You know I'm JJ you, right?

Click to expand...

Haha yeah I know you were JJ (just joking/joshing?). You know that I was as well? I knew I should have put in some emoticons/lols to demonstrate lightheartedness. :lol: 8)

p.s. don't worry- I'm working on a wax penis as we speak