Is Shyness and Introversion also a Choice?

Dear A. B. Curtiss

My question to you is: Is shyness and introversion also a choice. What can I change and what should I learn to accept?

Thank you. L. N.

Dear L.N.

Shyness and introversion are habits that can be changed. Mainly the reason people are shy and introverted is because of a bunch of repressed fear (left over from childhood) that has never been faced and dealt with.

So the answer to shyness and introversion is two-fold. First you start getting in touch with your repressed fear (read Chapter Ten of my book DEPRESSION IS A CHOICE.)

Second, start risking yourself in social situations. This is the kind of thing that we usually are helped with in our younger years when we are afraid to go to a birthday party, and our parents urge us, tell us what to say, tell us it's all right to be nervous and make some dumb mistake going to our first party, etc. But if you didn't have that kind of support, you have to go all the way back to your young emotional self, and do the work you didn't do twenty or thirty years ago. It's a matter of practice and familiarity with learning how to mix with people. Some people have it naturally, the rest of us have to learn how to do it.

I usually suggest that shy, introverted people take a course in Toastmasters, Int'l and learn how to speak in public. Most social anxiety is helped by this. You not only get to see your own fear and face it, you get to see how afraid other people are also and you don't feel so alone. There is a chapter in every city and it is very inexpensive. A. B. Curtiss