I’ve been shy for as long as I can remember. I moved around a lot in the first few years of my life and I think that had an impact.

My family struggled to transition me to nursery. I would cling to their legs and shake in silent fear at the prospect of being left with strangers. Even around my own family, I hardly ever made a peep.

I was encouraged from age 3 to do drama classes to learn how to express myself which helped in that environment but put in in a classroom in primary or secondary school and I’d lose my confidence to speak.

I think that all stemmed from social anxiety rather than shyness specifically. Uni got a little bit easier where I felt I could be more myself and meet more people with similar interests.

The changing point in my life was moving to Scotland. I knew no one and had nothing lined up when I came here. I really had to push myself and put myself there. 

I was always shamed for being shy, which unsurprisingly made my shyness worse and made me feel like the problem was with me. I was given constant messaging that introversion and shyness were invalid and I had to work on being more extroverted. This went against my nature and brought more shame.

The pivotal shift came when I started to read up more on introversion, Myers’s Briggs tests and the route of shyness. I started to feel less shame and more strength in how my shyness was expressed.

Knowing my strengths as an introvert, the difference in shyness and how to use those qualities to feel more confident helped immensely. 

I started to realise I wasn’t alone in how I processed things, taking more time to think about what to say was okay and my opinion still mattered. 

Leaning into my introvert traits helped to then reduce the overwhelming aspects of my shyness; 

I stopped focusing so inwardly when meeting others and expressed more curiosity in other people and establishing connection.

I worked on changing my beliefs and assumptions about what others might be thinking of me or the negative things I thought about myself.

Safety behaviours that I thought were helping were actually making my social anxiety and shyness worse  such as befriending pets at parties, only speaking to people I know or avoiding new situations. Once I tried to move away from these coping mechanisms, although difficult at first, things got a lot easier.

The final thing that helped was practice of having more social interactions. Instead of doing them with extrovert expectations, I did them in a way that felt more authentic to me. This has helped me establish genuine connection with new people free from stress or pressure.