My book The Shyness Guide basically does three things:
- It presents the evidence that shyness is natural
- It tries to convince you to accept yourself as a shy person
- It shows how you can function in the social world in a shy way, rather than in the outgoing way that is constantly urged on you.
But it also includes some warnings.
For example, if you do learn to accept yourself, you will find that that doesn’t mean you will be accepted by other people. As I say in the Guide,
Social humans will never accept that we’re fundamentally different from them. They’ve made that very clear to us. They’ve been trained to believe that the entire human race is social. They feel it in their bones, or in their genes. That blindness of theirs to the difference in us appears to be something immutable that we have to accept.
Yes, that’s something else you have to learn. Once you’ve learned it though – once you’ve given up trying to justify yourself with other people – you will find that you have more energy because you won’t be wasting time thinking about it.
And, strangely enough, some of those people who don’t accept shyness in anyone, will begin to respond positively to you. Though you will never convince them that being shy is a good thing, your new confidence in yourself will often win respect and attract people to you anyway.
That has been my experience. If you would like to read more, here is a free 1/3 abridgement of the book to give you a better idea of what it has to offer (click the book cover if you want to see it at Amazon.com):
SG2-CS 2017 – Excerpts – mobile
SG2 – PDF Excerpts – PC laptop
Alan Conrad 