Love is of every age. As a personality trait, shyness refers to a tendency to avoid others. Shy persons also suffer from feelings of social inhibition (uneasiness and strain when socializing). They fail to make eye contact, retreat when spoken to, speak too quietly, and display little interest or animation in conversations. Do you: Find it hard to talk to strangers? Lack confidence with people? Feel uncomfortable in social situations? Feel nervous with people who are not close friends? If so, you may be part of the 50 percent of people who consider themselves shy. Mild shyness may be no more than a nuisance. However, extreme shyness is often associated with depression, loneliness, fearfulness, social anxiety, inhibition, and low self-esteem. What causes shyness? Shy people sometimes lack social skills (proficiency at interacting with others). Many simply have not learned how to meet people or how to start a conversation and keep it going. Social anxiety (a feeling of apprehension in the presence of others) is also a factor in shyness. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

Almost everyone feels nervous in some social situations (such as meeting an attractive stranger). Typically, this is a reaction to evaluation fears (fears of being inadequate, embarrassed, ridiculed, or rejected). Although fears of rejection are common, they are much more frequent or intense in shy persons. Another issue for a shy person is a self-defeating bias (distortion) in their thinking. Specifically, shy people almost always blame themselves for when a social encounter does not go well. Shyness is, however, most often triggered by novel or unfamiliar social situations. A person who does fine with family or close friends may become shy and awkward when meeting an unknown person. Shyness is also magnified by formality, be meeting someone of a higher status, by being noticeably different from others, or by being the focus of attention (as in giving a speech). Do not most people become cautious and inhibited in such circumstances? Yes. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

There is a tendency to think that a shy person is wrapped up in their own feelings and thoughts. However, surprisingly, researchers found no connection between shyness and private self-consciousness (attention to inner feelings, thoughts, and fantasies). Instead, they discovered that shyness is linked to public self-consciousness (acute awareness of oneself as a social object). People who rate high in public self-consciousness are intensely concerned about what others think of them. They worry about saying the wrong thing or appearing foolish. In public, they may feel naked or as if others can see through them. Such feelings trigger anxiety or outright fear during social encounters, leading to bashfulness and inhibition. Anxiety, in turn, often causes the shy persons to misperceive others in social situations. By acting warmly dependent, one reduces the anxiety and uncomfortableness of having to be in authority. Behavior is directed toward getting from others the very support and strength one feels one does not have in oneself. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

Others experience the pull of caring, helping, nurturing, teaching, and so tend to respond to a shy person with friendly behaviors. By pleasing and appeasing, one secures both protection and help. The behavior appeals to love. The seeking of love from others, obviously, is neither unusual nor abnormal. It is love that makes the World go around, life is more pleasant when people treat each other lovingly. Similarly, the shy person come to acknowledge our strength and care. Appreciation, admiration, and authority characterizes the power that shy people are drawn to. What could be more enhancing than the desire to receive someone who compliments your personality? That makes us all feel more competent. Learning social skills takes practice. There is nothing innate about knowing how to meet people or start a conversation. Not everyone needs to go into a conscious intimate relationship—for some may find sufficient evolution and fulfillment in others domains, like uncommonly meaningful and/or creative work. However, everyone needs to wholeheartedly engage in the learnings and work that make such relational closeness possible, if only because through doing so, one learns to fully and compassionately relate to all that one is—and therefore we eventually heal ourselves. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

An intimate relationship promises so, so much, but only delivers what we put into it. This does not mean that it is all work—far from it! Much of what we need to put into it is what we are required to extend to the World anyway: our love, our compassion, our integrity, our courage, and our yearning for a deeper life. And what a lucid joy it is to enter so fully in consciously shared living—shared heart, shared being, shared evolution—that everything that arises, no matter how painful, is permitted to further our friendships. It is a gift to be so close, deeply bonded, and attached to another person that we cannot get away from them. Not to be afraid of what may happen to you when you have no more to say for yourself than a steamer without a light—that is the highest heroism. Love is the soul of harmony, the connecting chain that links the whole frame of being; it is the glory of nature, and they very perfection of humankind. (www.thedeedle.com) #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5