[From Gwen Stefani: Blonde with extra bottle, by Liz Hoggard, The Independent on Sunday, Nov 6, 2005. Photo: as Jean Harlow in The Aviator.]

Many other apparently self-assured performers and actors have been shy or introverted as children.

Many still are, as adults.

Nicole Kidman said in an interview in 2000, “I still regress into that shyness. So I don’t like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don’t like going to a party by myself.”

Kim Basinger has been quoted: “As a child, I was very shy. Painfully, excruciatingly shy. I hid a lot in my room. I was so terrified to read out loud in school that I had to have my mother ask my reading teacher not to call on me in class.”

An ingrained temperament?

Will it affect those of us who are shy all our lives? What causes it, and can we modulate it if we want to?

A Psychology Today article [Confidence: Stepping Out, by Erika Casriel, April 2007] says:

“Most shy people would be surprised to learn that 40 percent of all young people today describe themselves that way”and the rate continues to creep up by about 1 percent every year.

“Researchers attribute the rise in self-identified shyness to reduced face-to-face communication and an impatience with the typically slow pace of building social relationships.

“Shyness can also be inherited: In a study by Jerome Kagan at Harvard University, about 20 percent of infants reacted to stimuli like new toys by squirming and whimpering. Many of these infants developed into children who were more fearful than others – if their parents didn’t expose them gradually to new and disquieting situations, through which the fear response was extinguished.

“In other words, even for babies that may have been genetically predisposed to shyness, gentle learning overrides genetics.”

A variant gene

There is some new research, according to the article, showing that “some who are shy have a variant gene involved in the flow of serotonin, making them especially reactive to stress – which may explain why, before a big event, some people respond to their increasing alertness with anxiety, while others stay cool.

“All this suggests that shyness may be a temperament that’s unlikely to change. But even if shyness has a genetic component, and shy people never see their social anxiety slip to zero, there are proven strategies to help anyone interact successfully.”

But, the article warns, “Trying to tune out anxious thoughts may make us more self-conscious; fetishizing the confidence of a George Clooney or an Oprah Winfrey, ironically, makes us less likely to attain it.

“But by taking small risks, accumulating a pattern of successes, and taking credit when we do something right, anyone can become dramatically more confident in the most daunting social situations.”

Born confident

Bernardo Carducci, director of Indiana University Southeast’s Shyness Research Institute points out that we may “assume that confident people were born that way.”

The article notes, “We compare ourselves to the most popular person in the room – or on TV – rather than to people who are similar to us. When we see a celebrity like George Clooney on talk shows – suave and funny, flirting easily with the audience – we feel inadequate.

“But we forget that he’s done this hundreds of times and has an army of handlers to groom and prep him. When we watch The Tonight Show and conclude that icons of charisma are born, not made, we are not only wrong – we sabotage our chances of achieving our social potential.

“The reality is that most socially confident people deliberately learn specific skills, like displaying friendly body language, understanding the predictable format of conversations with new people, and focusing on the topic rather than on how one is being perceived.”

Clea DuVall has referred to herself as “an only child and I’m just a real loner kind of person, and yeah, kinda dark. But I’m happy. Not sad. I’m just shy and nervous.” [imdb.com]

A number of actors quoted on my various sites say that being on stage or on camera has helped them feel less shy, perhaps through using just those strategies.

Theater companies and film sets are often described as “families”, and it can probably help a shy actor to be working long hours with more extroverted “family members” and to role-play confident characters, with self-assured dialogue and body language.

In my interview with actor Taye Diggs [some years ago], he said, “I have been acting for as long as I’ve been shy.”

But, he added, “I wouldn’t say my insecurities and shyness have lessened just because of expressing myself through acting, but what has a role in my becoming more confident is the kind of false sense of adoration you get from the business… Everyone always telling you how great you are…

“For the average cat, that might have a bad effect, but for me, because I was so insecure, it gives me a reason to be a little more confident.”

Most of us will not be actors – but we can role-play or use other techniques that many actors have found helpful, like putting ourselves into social situations that are out of our normal comfort zone, or where we can gain more acknowledgment from others.

But shyness may more than temperament – it may be a matter of performance anxiety or social phobia or some other mental health issue that would be helped by counseling or even medication. As the tv ads say, “See your doctor” if you think that fits for you.

Book by Jerome Kagan, psychology professor emeritus at Harvard: The Long Shadow of Temperament

Book by Bernardo J. Carducci Ph.D., Susan Golant: Shyness: A Bold New Approach

Related Talent Development Resources pages:
Intensity / sensitivity
Introversion / shyness
Courage / confidence
Anxiety relief solutions

shy personality, anxiety and performance, shyness, introverted personality, high sensitivity personality

Julie Christie

“I found films to be turbulent and stressful. They have caused me an enormous amount of anxiety, because I do not have a lot of confidence. You are working, intellectually and mentally, and you are having to be with people and socialize all the time. Actors like it, on the whole, but I was not born with that quality. I am very quiet and would much prefer to talk to a few people rather than a crowd.” //

“I could never really see the point of being high-profile when I loathed it so much. Every now and then, you can go to something like an Oscars ceremony, but nobody is holding a gun to your head. The rules were the same 40 years ago as they are now. You can either choose your spotlight – or you can stay at home.”  [imdb.com]

Jennifer Beals

“I get emotional all the time,” Jennifer Beals [left] once said. “I get emotional every time I make a speech, or talk about other cast members,” she says. “Every now and again, my heart just explodes and expands.”

Laurel Holloman, her castmate on the Showtime series “The L Word,” has seen this firsthand: “If Jennifer is passionate about something, it comes to the surface within seconds. My theory on that is all the best actors have a couple of layers of skin peeled away. There’s a huge emotional life in Jennifer, and it’s kind of beautiful.” [From article The Real Beals, by Jancee Dunn, Lifetime lifetimetv.com, August 2004]

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman has noted, “You live with a lot of complicated emotions as an actor, and they whirl around you and create havoc at times. And yet, as an actor you’re consciously and unconsciously allowing that to happen… It’s my choice, and I would rather do it this way than live to be 100… Or rather than choosing not to exist within life’s extremities. I’m willing to fly close to the flame.” [Interview mag., Oct 2003]

Brittany Murphy

Brittany Murphy once commented that she thinks she is “a very oversensitive, vulnerable person. You have to be to do this for a living.” [Premiere, November 2000]

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson has noted that sensitivity can have a dark side: “I think I was born with a great awareness of my surroundings and an awareness of other people. I know when I really connect with somebody… Sometimes that awareness is good, and sometimes I wish I wasn’t so sensitive.

“I’m so happy I’m not walking around life with a cloud over my head, not really knowing which way to look or which way to turn. But then, on the other hand, sometimes you don’t wanna see what’s behind people’s doors.” [Interview mag., July, 2001]

Winona Ryder has commented, “I’ve never been a suicidal person. But there have definitely been times when I’ve thought, I’m too sensitive for this world right now; I just don’t belong here – it’s too fast and I don’t understand it.”

Ellen Muth

Ellen Muth [in the TV series Dead Like Me] has noted her character George/Georgia does care about people, “but she puts on this front like she doesn’t really care about anything and I kind of like that. George’s sensitivity is very hidden, but when it slips out she very quickly makes it so nobody else sees it… George tries to hide her emotions and I tend to do that.”

She adds, “One of the great things about acting is that you are able to release all sorts of things through another character.”
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See more in related post: Actors and Artists As Highly Sensitive People.

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“It’s the fundamental part of us that allows us to be touched by beauty, signs of grace, or intimate moments with others.”

She adds that it is also “the mechanism that provides us with an internal warning signal that lets us know when we’re in situations that may be hazardous to our emotional, physical, or spiritual health.

“As we grow in our understanding and practice of extreme self care, our sensitivity level rises and we pay closer attention to what we need to feel good.

From her article So Sensitive: Are you tired of sucking it up?

Chapter 8 of her book The Art of Extreme Self-Care: Transform Your Life One Month at a Time is titled “You’re So Sensitive.”

The image links to the audiobook version, which is also available as a standard book and a 12-session online course. [From Hay House.]

~~~~~

Video: Cheryl Richardson on The Tapping Solution :

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To learn more about this self-care approach – including a video – see
The Tapping Solution – Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)

high sensitivity personality, highly sensitive people, highly sensitive books, high sensitivity resources

Throughout my practice, I have encountered a connection between highly sensitive people and their own creative impulses.

This characteristic does not discriminate between painter, actor, or musician—they all appear to have one thing in common: they experience the world differently than the average individual.

Creatives often feel and perceive more intensely, dramatically, and with a wildly vivid color palate to draw from, which can only be described as looking at the world through a much larger lens.

Without a substantial filtration system firmly in place to screen out most of the busy noise, these people tend to receive a far greater amount of stimuli directly into their psyches.

As a result, they frequently become more attuned to subtle details in their environment, to the people they deal with, and especially to their own internal process.

Creatives might find themselves more easily overwhelmed, and often live chaotic lives, affecting not only personal relationships, but also their own productivity.

Over-stimulation can sometimes manifest further into anxiety or depression, bogging down their ability to cope with every day stressors or life’s challenges.

Pearl Buck, an American novelist living in China, and who received a Noble and a Pulitzer, best describes the highly sensitive person by saying,

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them…a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.”

According to psychologist Dr. Elaine Aron, author of The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, 20% of the population has this innate quality.

I would even take that figure one step further and suggest that a large percentage of highly sensitive people would fall into the category of creative minds.

Although this is something many artists report struggling with, I don’t believe a high sensitivity to the world should necessarily be viewed in a negative light, but rather as a divine gift.

For without this quality, their art, script, music or performance might lack a necessary element capable of touching an audience deeply.

This might then bring up an important question: Do people create in an attempt to process, and survive, a condition that overwhelms them?

Pearl Buck also mentions, “Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create—so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.”

Along with the process of creating, there is perhaps the opportunity to exorcise out the thing that has accumulated and taken hold internally.

Once externalized, a highly sensitive person can finally make sense of the chaos, opening space toward escaping the overwhelming world they battle every day.

he work I do with clients is primarily focused on mapping out, and gaining, a deeper understanding of how an individual processes the world. Together we develop a plan towards building coping mechanisms required to better maintain a healthy equilibrium.

The key is to embrace this sensitivity with compassion and free from judgment of any kind. By then reframing it as a gift, rather than as an obstacle, people immediately grant themselves permission to be who they are freely and without encumbrances.

Putting together a “survival list,” so to speak, consisting of ways to channel overwhelming sensitivity can often serve as a means to cope.

Serving as something like a first-aid kit for the highly sensitive person, the survival list can consist of your choice of art.

That might include long walks, yoga, spending time quietly alone or with a friend, journal writing, or maybe even meditation.

When the creative person has something to fall back on, this can empower him/ or her in better managing high sensitivity as oppose to feeling debilitated by it.

Rather, they productively move forward and continue to focus their efforts into achieving the healthiest and most balanced life possible.

©2008 Lisa A. Riley. All Rights Reserved. This article may not be reproduced or used on other websites without permission.

Published here with permission.

About Lisa A. Riley:

“In addition to her background in the arts, she has spent the last seven years counseling creative individuals such as artists, actors, musicians, writers and designers in the expressive arts.

“As a result of her own experience with the creative process, she is able to understand the unique qualities of the artistic personality and the drive to express one’s inner world.”

From profile on her site TheArtofMind.com

high sensitivity personality, highly sensitive people, highly sensitive books, high sensitivity resources, highly sensitive people and creativity

As John Lennon once put it, “Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.”

Elaine Aron, PhD describes her new Psychology Today blog Attending to the Undervalued Self as “the result of years of puzzling over the ultimate foundation of our universal emotional problems.

“One answer I addressed in The Highly Sensitive Person: Evolution has made about 20% of us more susceptible to both the good and bad things in life.

She continues in her first post: Ranking and Linking, For Better and For Worse :

“Innate temperament cannot be the whole story, however. Research (and my own experience as a therapist) finds that low self-esteem underlies most depression, anxiety, and failed relationships.

“Yet in spite of our focus on raising self-esteem, we have had little success. In fact, research [indicates] low self-esteem is in a sense natural, one result of our instinct to rank ourselves among others… repeating self-affirmations, the most common self-help treatment, only increases low self-esteem in those already feeling bad, as many hapless souls have found.”

She adds, “Are you often stuck in ranking? Then you are often undervaluing yourself. It’s natural. No wonder raising yourself in the self-esteem ranking is not the answer. To get out of ranking, switch to linking, my next blog entry.”

Her upcoming book is The Undervalued Self: Restore Your Love/Power Balance, Transform the Inner Voice That Holds You Back, and Find Your True Self-Worth

Also see Self concept posts / articles

building self confidence, self esteem confidence, confidence building, building self esteem, building identity, search for your true self

In our interview, she talks about some of the challenges we may face in taking care of ourselves and living our purpose, such as being overly self-critical or not setting good self-care boundaries.

Hear the interview at Inner Talent Interviews

high sensitivity personality, highly sensitive people, highly sensitive person, HSP, HSPs, sensitive souls

Audiobook: The Highly Sensitive Person, By Elaine N. Aron

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Winona Ryder has said, “You go through spells where you feel that maybe you’re too sensitive for this world. I certainly felt that.”

“There was a time when I was 19 when I really, really, really thought I was going crazy,” she has said about her own brief stay at a psychiatric clinic.

“I was exhausted and going through a terrible depression.”

From post: Sensitivity and stress – Winona Ryder: “Maybe I’m too sensitive for this world.

Having mental health challenges like depression and anxiety may be all the more severe when we are highly sensitive.

highly sensitive relationships, high sensitivity personality, emotional empaths, empaths and relationships

“At least 50 million Americans have a finely tuned nervous system.”

Books by Ted Zeff, PhD :

The Highly Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide: Essential Skills for Living Well in an Overstimulating World

Highly Sensitive Person’s Companion: Daily Exercises for Calming Your Senses in an Overstimulating World

Shrink Rap Radio audio podcast interview with Dr. Zeff

His site: www.drtedzeff.com

Source video: Highly Sensitive People: Coping Strategies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raN8mvJA_Xo

Related posts :

Our High Sensitivity Personality – a video

Video: The Highly Sensitive Person by Therese J. Borchard

Video: Elaine Aron on the trait of high sensitivity

high sensitivity personality, highly sensitive people, highly sensitive books, highly sensitive people books, sensitive and stressed

“Researchers have discovered that a primitive region of the brain responsible for sensorimotor control also has an important role in regulating emotional responses to threatening situations.

“This region appears to work in concert with another structure called the amygdala to regulate social and emotional behavior.”

The story explains, “Georgetown University Medical Center researchers have recently discovered that activation of a primitive brain region, the deep layers of superior colliculus (DLSC), elicits defensive behaviors such as an exaggerated startle, hypervigilance, cowering, and escape…. in addition to triggering defensive behaviors, the activation of DLSC leads to a decrease in affiliative social interactions.”

Like mainstream media – and probably psychiatry in general – this news story was framed in terms of dysfunction: “Researchers say it is possible that a prolonged activation of this defense system may lead to emotional disorders” including post traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders.

[From Two Brain Structures Key To Emotional Balance Especially In Threatening Situations, ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2009)]

As we know who have one, a highly sensitive nervous system is not necessarily a “disorder.”

That is not to discount very real medical and mental health issues, such as anxiety, and PTSD – which can include very disruptive or disabling behaviors, emotions, and another kind of over-activation of the nervous system: hypervigilance.

That is something actor Ashley Judd experienced.

She had a “very unsafe” and disruptive childhood, and became what she calls a “hypervigilant child.”

From post Developing creativity: hypervigilance and highly sensitive people

Related post: Highly sensitive people: latent inhibition and creativity

More neuroscience posts

high sensitivity personality, highly sensitive people, highly sensitive person, inner-directed personality, neuroscience of sensitivity