Part 2:
Here are some helpful things that are fairly simple that you can incorporate into your everyday life immediately.
Empowering Questions
When you ask yourself a difficult question, your subconscious goes to work looking for an answer, and it will always come up with something - even if the question is a self-defeating one. For example, if you ask yourself, "Why aren't I dating?" you'll get something like, "I'm too shy." or "I'm a loser". If you ask yourself, "Why don't people like me?" you'll get "I must be too ugly or unattractive" or "I mustn't be interesting enough". Even worse, your subconscious may then go to work looking through your databank of references and finding ones that support this idea so that it becomes a belief!
Remember, everything that's ever happened to you is stored in your memory. You've got references to support virtually any belief, but once you've got a belief, your brain tends to filter out the references that run contrary to it. There are probably lots of times when you were outgoing, but since you believe in your shyness, you don't notice or remember them - but your brain is quick to point out the times you've failed in a social situation. So the trick, then, is to ask yourself empowering questions.
Yourself:
What about me is interesting? Attractive?
What do people like about me?
What qualities and accomplishments am I most proud of?
What should I change about myself? How would I go about changing that?
Conversation:
What do we have in common that I could bring up?
Is there anything interesting that happened to me lately that I could relate?
Is there something interesting happening in our environment that I could mention?
What aspects of his/her life could I ask questions about?
**** On By The Opposite Sex:
How was my approach poor? What could I do to improve it?
What about my approach was good? Can I emphasize that next time?
If I was him/her, what would I want me to do?
You get the idea.
Anchoring
Now that you know how anchors are formed, you can create your own! They can be really useful for changing your emotional state when you need it. I bet you feel really confident when you do something you're good at, like playing a sport, a musical instrument, or a game of chess. Wouldn't it be great if you could have that same feeling of confidence when you're at a social gathering or approaching someone for a date?
Here's how to create an anchor. Get yourself to feel the feeling you want to anchor, either by doing something physically or creating the experience in your head (trust me, it still works). At the same time, do something else, which will be your "trigger" for the feeling. The trigger can be a sight, a sound, a movement, or a touch. Once you've done it enough, it should become permanent. Keep in mind that if you'll be using anchors in social situations, you don't want your trigger to be anything embarrassing. It can be something simple like touching your finger to your forehead, tugging on your ear, scratching your nose, stroking your mustache or your chin, or a phrase... Now that you've created the anchor, whenever you want the emotional response just perform the trigger, and if you've done it right, your emotional state will change, as if by magic.
Pattern Interrupts
When we find a behaviour that works, we tend to get "locked" into it; we repeat it whenever that situation comes up. This is called a Strategy or Pattern. Avoiding people at social situations is a pattern, and so is not showing your feelings, and so is not asking for dates or doing it poorly, and so is feeling sorry for yourself afterwards. Remember, if your nervous system is geared toward shyness, your subconscious considers these things good, that's why I said these behaviours "work". But what you can do is, whenever you find yourself in an unproductive pattern, you do what's called a Pattern Interrupt. A Pattern Interrupt is anything sudden and unexpected that totally defies the pattern and therefore breaks its hold on you. It can be physical, like suddenly screaming at the top of your lungs or dancing wildly about the room. These are great if you're in the privacy of your own home or you don't mind making a fool of yourself. If you need something more subtle, you can do the interrupt in your head, such as experiencing a series of bizarre and totally inappropriate images or sounds.
Here's one way I used this successfully. I was trying to ask someone out and was doing a lot of "Ummm.... Uhhhh...." and just generally feeling idiotic and screwing it up. All of a sudden I just said "****!", with feeling (She was the type that doesn't mind swearing). Instantly my internal voice went from "Argh, what do I say, what do I do, what if she turns me down..." etc. to "Just quit your damn stalling and DO IT, dumb-ass!!" and I asked her out. I didn't get the date, BTW, but I think that was because we came from VERY different worlds, and she just didn't have a good impression of me. Actually, I was quite proud of myself for getting past the fear and taking the risk. Here's another example. Supposing you really got a rise out of "Dead Poet's Society". A combination anchor/interrupt would be to declare "CARPE DIEM!!!" or "SIEZE THE DAY!!!" with gusto.
Leverage
For any decision you make, your brain weighs the pleasures and pains of taking action and not taking action, but it will motivate you more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. If you're not getting the results you want, it's probably because you've linked too much pain to the action. There are two ways you can get around this - either find a way to lessen the pain associated with the action, or associate even more pain with not taking action. This changing of the rules is called Leverage.
For example, I would think all of us link pain to losing money. So what you do is, when you go into a social situation, bring a few buddies with you. Decide on a goal that you're capable of meeting ("I will meet X new people" or "I will ask for X dates" or "I won't leave without X phone numbers"), and make a bet with your friends that if you don't meet your goal, you owe them, say, $20 or $50. Make sure these are people who will hold you to your word. Now, normally, you probably link quite a bit of pain to meeting people, but I would think the pain of losing $50 would be even greater! If your goal was to meet five people, you'd probably introduce yourself to the first five people you ran into!
I think that really, we don't link much pain to our shyness at all. If we did, we wouldn't have this problem. There is the loneliness, but it's what we've been feeling all our lives. We're used to it, it's nothing new. And by avoiding people, we feel safe. Change is perceived as the threat; it is dangerous because it would place demands on us we might not be able to meet. Reversing this imbalance can go a long way toward getting what we want.
still coming......[post 3]
Physiology
It's common knowledge that the way you're feeling is reflected in your body. If you're depressed, you frown, your shoulders droop, your back is hunched, you tend to look down at the floor. If you're happy, you smile, you stand straight, you look up.
What you might not know is that this works in reverse. By changing your body, you can change the way you feel. If you don't believe this, try it out. Smile and laugh for no good reason. Dance around a bit. Feels good, doesn't it? Now frown and hunch over. Bury your head in your hands. Sucks, eh?
A good example of this is when a friend confided in me that I had a "geeky walk". It was true; I used to drag my feet and I would look down as I passed people. So what I did was figure out how to "walk confident" (And this took some practice...) and I made the effort to keep my gaze steady and make a little eye contact with people. Sure enough, not only did the physical change make me feel more confident, but the way people responded to me as well. I began to get smiles and glances from some of the women (or maybe I always had and just never noticed before), and that is a GREAT feeling!
Also, in case you're not doing this already, regular exercise does wonders for your self-confidence.
Part 3: The Heavy Artillery
Okay, now the really good stuff. Here we're going to work on changing your beliefs, and your pain anchors, which should get rid of your shyness for good. But first, we need to know exactly what they are.
First, brainstorm your beliefs. Examine the thoughts that run through your head when you're in your shy-pattern. Also look at the way you talk about yourself to others and your self-talk. It's important that you be completely honest with yourself and be as thorough as possible. Examples:
I am a nerd/geek/loser/inept
I'm too shy
I'm not compatible with him/her
I'm not normal
I don't know what to say/do
I'm afraid of rejection/screwing up/being hurt/being embarrassed/what others think
Men/Women don't like me
People don't like me
Now, your anchors. Make two lists, pleasurable experiences that you move toward, and painful experiences that you avoid. Rank them in descending order starting with the experiences you take the most action to gain/avoid. Again, it's important that you're very honest with yourself. Don't list them in the order you'd like them to be in ideally, but examine your actual behaviour.
Sample pleasures Sample pains
Love Success Rejection Anger
Freedom Intimacy Frustration Loneliness
Security Adventure Depression Failure
Power Passion Humiliation Guilt
Comfort Health