It is time to tackle shyness from a warrior’s perspective, on the front line. Shyness is something that effects everyone. Really it is just a particular manifestation of fear. Here I will show you how to go about combating it.

Tina Su wrote about 20 Ways to Attack Shyness and covered a bunch of methods quite elegantly. However the methods listed mix together the techniques of the warrior, the tactics of the captain and the strategies of the general. Presented with these methods people can get confused with which level to apply them in their lives. Higher level methods are much less effective without the solid foundations of fine grained methods.

Following I will explain some of the essential techniques that a warrior (you) should use to battle shyness. With these understood you can go on and make full use of the aforementioned article.

Know Yourself

Before a warrior can fight they need to obtain their weapon.

1. Discover your power – Your power is what some might call your consciousness. There is an element inside all of us that is always present. Thoughts and emotions come and go and yet in between these you will find there is something that always exists. This element is what you must get to know and hold onto. It is your power.
2. Discover your weapon – In finding your power you will have had to wade between thoughts and emotions. Holding onto your power you will discover the ability to watch thoughts and emotions. This ability to watch your thoughts and emotions is your weapon and you must use it to guard your connection to your power.

Know your Enemy

Fear fights using thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. Most of the time it tries to sneak under your guard and disconnect you from your power. Once you lose your power it is easy for fear to take away your weapon. Then it simply overwhelms you as you sit their defenseless (which I know most of us have felt).

Taking away the imagery this is what happens. A fearful thought or emotion appears, so minor in fact that you will probably not think it is fear. Often it is a small doubt. Your attention gets taken by this thought or emotion and you start to attach to it. This opens the floodgates and more thoughts and emotions appear, leveraging the elements before it until there is so much fear in you that it appears huge.

This is why you must focus the battle on the smallest elements. Don’t let yourself be disarmed.

People often say they were overcome by fear out of nowhere. While sometimes big fears do appear inside us, more often it starts with lots of tiny little ones, rapidly building inside. Feeding the larger fear.

I talked about some of the thoughts, emotions and sensations that are common indications of fear in Why you Should Know Fear so you can read that if you want more examples. The key is to focus on these elements when battling.

Fight

Now that you are equipped with your weapon and your knowledge of the enemy you must know how to fight.

The battle with fear is like battling ninjas or assassins. They will try to take you out before you know they are there or disable you so the brute force elements can storm the gates. Here is what you must do:

1. Always be equipped – Always be aware of your power. Know what your core is and know what it feels like to be connected to it.
2. Always have your weapon ready – You must always be on guard. Watch your thoughts and emotions very carefully. You must watch your mind like the horizon for thoughts and your heart like the plains for emotions.

Think of yourself like a guard on a watchtower. When you spot the enemy it is your job to raise the alarm. With the alarm raised you can use all of your power and awareness to remain separate from the enemy and not let it capture you. If you persist you not only deprive the enemy of its energy but you will also gain knowledge of how it attacks, which is useful for future encounters and vital for ultimate victory.

Extending the Basics

The basic method of fighting is fundamentally defensive. It does weaken fear steadily over time providing you have more victories than defeats.

This is why you must always fight fear in every moment to make the most progress.

There is an offensive technique that can be used to reduce fear but without the solid basics of defense that I have described here it is almost useless. It is not much use to be able to defeat one enemy when you lose to hundreds of others who in their victories will just gain more strength.

Consequently I recommended you practice the above basics for atleast 3 months before getting offensive.

The offensive technique is essentially to ask for the elimination of the enemy.

Think of it as the guard calling out to the greatest offensive force that you have spotted the enemy. You have to trust that this force can do the job.

Whenever you spot the enemy (thoughts and emotions) you ask for their elimination to this force. You can ask into the unknown, ask the universe or if you are religiously inclined you can ask a particular element. What is important is that trust that what you ask will be able to get the job done. Done with persistence and consistency you will notice the change in your internals.

Put the above information into practice to discover how it works. It is the core element of practices that I have used to change my life. I hope with constant effort it can change yours too.

Inspiration and some Light Entertainment

Now enjoy a story of a timid being who was transformed and overcame its shyness. Or skip down below to leave a comment, I always like to hear and discuss understanding with other people.

Tale: Shy One Discovers their Power