[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

But for many of us who have been highly sensitive all our lives, or had especially challenging experiences as children, that image does not feel like a fit.

Woody Allen, for example, has said that for as long as he can remember, he was a loner, hiding out in his room from the arguments of his parents, and the readiness of his mother in particular to respond to any provocation with a slap.”

Author Jenna Forrest writes in a post: “At the age of seven, I was dramatically sensitive, ultra-shy, pretty picky and painstakingly conscientious.

“My pastime of choice was studying the mysterious intricacies of the world from the safety of the shrub outside my front door.

“Being most anywhere else put me in a panic. I tried hard to disguise my most blatant shortcoming — eruptive emotion — but failed time and time again.

“My sentiment just didn’t want to be buried. It always would find the fissure in my willful mental dam…”

She adds, “As an adult I came to realize how little is truly known about the day-to-day thoughts and feelings of sensitive kids. So, I began to write Help Is On Its Way from my personal experience.

“As I wrote however, I realized that the story was developing a voice of its own. It reminded me that this wasn’t just about my life. We’re all in this together, connected, living lives full of comedy and tragedy, failure and success, loss and hope.

“If we’re lucky along the way, we might somehow find a way to mold, recast, and refine our unhappy histories for our own sake — to let ourselves see our pasts differently… to start creating a brand new life. The hero, the artist, rises in us victorious.”

[From her post on the Inspired blog: "What Writing Taught Me."]

Her site: www.jennaforrest.com

In her article Every Blessing and Curse is a Choice. Choose the Blessing! she writes, “I would bet that a lot of us were fully prepared for our own funerals by about age seven, figuring that we were soon going to die from sensory overload.

“From the very beginning, the world was stirring me like a whisk. Life in general felt upside down, inside out and backwards. From my three-foot tall childhood viewpoint, my city looked littered; the music in our house was too loud; chemical cleaners and detergents smelled too strong; and cars sped too fast. Sensing the bad mood of every stranger walking down the street didn’t help.”

She also quotes from her book: Help Is On Its Way: A True Story :

“I’ve always gotten praised for taking the least amount of space, being the quietest, giving up the good seats for a spot on the floor, eating the leftovers in the fridge, and making use of the hand-me-downs everybody else is too good for. I must’ve gotten so used to it that I’ve picked up the habit of choosing the worst for myself on my own, even when my family isn’t around to praise me for it.”

But that kind of self-limiting behavior and pain can be turned around, Forrest notes; we can learn to work with “the sticky chaos of our overloaded psyches” as she puts it:

“Knowing that we deserve the best that life has to offer brings us every ounce of power we ever needed to help and inspire others.

“That awareness of personal merit is the magic that turns every perceived curse into the true blessing that awaits.”

Dr. Elaine Aron says of the book: “Highly sensitive people will recognize their own childhood in Jenna Forrest’s radiant painting–using every hue in the emotional spectrum–of her years from seven to seventeen… Readers will be charmed by this sensitive woman’s unique creative force, a valuable reminder of their own.”

~ ~

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.”
~~

See more in related post: Actors and Artists As Highly Sensitive People.

~ ~

“Highly sensitive people are all creative by definition.”

Elaine Aron, PhD adds that it is “because we process things so thoroughly and notice so many subtleties and emotional meanings that we can easily put two unusual things together.”

Sensory sensitivity also comes into play in many creative endeavors. When Therese Borchard of Beliefnet interviewed me (her Huffington Post column has the title 5 Gifts of Being Highly Sensitive), one of the “gifts” I mentioned is the richness of sensory detail that life provides.

The subtle shades of texture in clothing, and foods when cooking, the sounds of music or even traffic or people talking, fragrances and colors of nature – all of these may be more intense for highly sensitive people.

(Of course, people are not simply “sensitive” or “not sensitive” – like other qualities and traits, it’s a matter of degree.)

Years ago, I took a color discrimination test to work as a photographic technician, making color prints. The manager said I’d scored better, with more subtle distinctions between hues in the test charts, than anyone he had evaluated.

That kind of response to color makes visual experience rich and exciting, and can help artists and designers be even more excellent.

See more in my post Gifts and challenges of being highly sensitive.

In her article Highly Sensitive Persons – High Sensitivity and Creative Ability, psychologist Susan Meindl, MA writes, “A temperamental connection has been observed between between high Sensitivity and creativity.

> Continued in Being Highly Sensitive and Creative.

Highly sensitive people…have nervous systems and minds which permit more stimulation to enter without automatically and unconsciously shutting it out, and further, that they then cognitively process the stimulation that they receive in more detail than others do.

Stimulation comes in on all sensory channels: sights, sounds, smells, vibrations, touch.

HSP’s typically respond strongly and quickly reach their natural level of tolerance in loud, bright or chaotic environments.

Managing this kind of overstimulation could be treated as a “technical problem” of reducing environmental intensity or leaving it when possible.

Five kinds of over-stimulation can contribute to depression.

Continued in her article Highly Sensitive People and Depression: Overstimulation May Lead to Depression

~ ~

As a sensitive soul, good energy-management skills are a must.

This means tuning in to yourself on a regular basis and continually reassessing and adjusting what you take on.

It’s a real balancing act.

And sometimes, despite your best intentions, your energy gets drained and you feel out of balance.

The key, then, is to know how to quickly and easily recharge your energy.

Some of why this situation happens is that highly sensitive people are more susceptible to overstimulation than less sensitive types.

Being overstimulated ultimately drains your energy.

You may not notice the drain right away because it can also produce an adrenaline rush, which creates a sense of urgency or even panic that’s hard to shake.

Continued in her article Recharge Your Energy

Jenna Avery is a highly sensitive coach and intuitive who offers these programs:

Self-Study Classes for Sensitive Souls – Jenna says, “These self-study classes are the product of my many efforts to find ways to be a happy, healthy, highly sensitive soul.” I have investigated everything I could get my hands on about energy skills, energetic boundary strengthening, interpersonal boundaries, flower essences for sensitive souls, empathy, intuitive development and more.

“I wanted to find out everything I could about how to feel happy about my life without feeling so assaulted by it — other people’s energy, emotions, and criticisms, and the life stresses and challenges that go along with day-to-day life.

“I believe that energy skills are amongst the most critical information available to sensitives, and unfortunately, it isn’t widely available, at least in a mainstream way. I’ve come to believe that what I teach is the equivalent of Sensitive Souls 101. I’d love to share it with you.

Also learn about her other programs at www.jennaavery.com.

~ ~

I have often heard an analogy in the psychology field that creative geniuses and those who experience mental disorder are in the same water.

The difference is that one is swimming and the other is drowning.

Let’s talk about this water. These fluid, intangible, ever-changing emotions. Sensations.

All that arises right now that we cannot ever plan on, EVER. Go ahead, analyze that. I know you will. That’s how we HSPs roll.

Eventually you get to the conclusion that it’s true. There is no way to plan for now. You just show up.

On solid, dry land we can plan. We can map it out, chart it, monitor it. We can stand on it. We can build with it. It’s quite predictable. This is logic.

So what do many of us do who have found ourselves in this sea of sensations, tossing us around? We hold onto something really heavy and sink to the bottom to find a limit.

We cling to the edge and hold on TIGHT. When the water is calm, we may venture out a bit.

But, we always stay in the shallow end for fear of getting lost in the deep end. We get incredibly capable at holding on and our arms get really strong.

But, at the core we are weak. And for those at the bottom, they are drowning. Some just get tossed around over and over, assuming that is their lot in life. Beat up and broken down.

I find the same thing as I work with highly sensitive people in my therapy and coaching practice.

> Continued in article Are you drowning in a sea of sensitivity? It’s time to walk on water.

“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 :

..

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

Jenna Forrest is a coach who offers “energy healing, intuitive coaching and spiritual apprenticeships to help sensitives experience inner peace, higher consciousness, and life transformation” and writes in her memoir Help Is On Its Way about growing up with the trait of high sensitivity. In our podcast interview, she talks about empowering and transcending sensitivity. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

“Millions of highly sensitive people right at this moment are carrying a heavier burden than the rest of society just because they’re perceptive of the world’s discord, which is coming at them every day from a laundry list of sources.

“This is where many sensitive kids and adults are right now, thinking that all these energies going on inside them are because something’s wrong with them.

“Highly sensitive people have a beautiful ability to turn these burdens into art, inventions, writing, acting and other expressions that speak to the hearts of humanity.

“They also have powerful, healing intuition that when developed, can be used to nullify the suffering that’s been endured by themselves and others.”

Continued in podcast interview (and transcript) Jenna Forrest on Empowering Sensitivity.

~ ~

Relieving anxiety for highly sensitive people

In this video, Jenna Forrest discusses “what every sensitive empath must know about anxiety in order to experience relief more quickly.”

..

Her site: Transformational Life Coaching and Profound Healing.

In the video, Jenna mentions the Tapas Acupressure Technique, which is an energy therapy, like EFT.

Learn more about meridian tapping and EFT / Emotional Freedom Techniques (including a video) on the Anxiety Relief Solutions page: The Tapping Solution – Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), and on The Tapping Solution site.

A blog post on a previous EFT World Summit said, “Rue mentions somewhere in the course of the interview [see video below] that she considers herself to be ‘highly sensitive’ and further, that she also believes that it is the nature of many people in the helping field.

“Rue Hass finds EFT to be a great match for highly sensitive people, giving them the opportunity to reframe their flaws in a compassionate and positive light, and to begin to honour themselves for continuing to be sensitive in a de-sensitized and de-sensitizing world.”

Who comes first?

In her book This is Where I Stand: the Power and the Gift of Being Sensitive, Hass writes, “Who comes first? Deep down inside we are such good people. We are so committed to bringing goodness into the world. But actually for many of us, this is exactly what leads us to being so sick and so tired.

“More often than not we put our commitment to ‘saving the world’ ahead of our own well-being.  In fact, many of us have the unconscious belief that we must ‘save the world’ before we can attend to our own needs.”

She continues, “Remember our wonderful ideal qualities:
* Internally deeply caring
* Deeply committed to the positive and the good
* On a mission to bring peace to the world
* Strong personal morality
* Often make extraordinary sacrifices for someone / something we believe in

“Interestingly, sensitive people often fail to include themselves in this mission. The other day when I pointed out to my client how good she is to OTHER people, she said to me in surprise, ‘Of course I would never let anyone else down!  But it hadn’t occurred to me that I let MYSELF down.’

“Sometimes we intentionally leave ourselves off the list, in an attempt not to be ‘selfish.’

“Self-ish? When someone mentions being selfish to me, I always reframe it.  I say,  How about spelling ‘selfish’ with a capital S – make it ‘Selfish.  I draw a big S in the air.  The capital S stands for your soul.  If you don’t take care of your soul,
no one else will So go on and BE SELF-ISH!!  You have the right.  You deserve that!”

Being sensitive is the kind of awareness that can save the world

On her author site Intuitive Mentoring, she writes :

Have You Ever Heard:
“Oh, you are just too sensitive!”
“You take things so hard!”
“Just let it roll off your back.”
“Why can’t you just let it go!”

And maybe even, “What’s wrong with you? You are such a cry baby!”You have probably thought they were right – there must be something wrong with you! Being sensitive is not only a real emotional temperament, it is the kind of awareness that can save the world.

I speak as a “highly sensitive person” myself. It has taken me most of my life to understand this temperament and value it for its gifts. In my work as an Intuitive Mentor I have worked with many people like you or your loved ones.If you’re reading this and feeling, “Yeah, that’s me, alright!” YOU are the help that is on the way, whether you are sensitive yourself, or partnered, working or interacting with, or the parent of someone who is sensitive.

This book [This is Where I Stand: the Power and the Gift of Being Sensitive] describes the physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges of the highly sensitive temperament, and teaches how to resolve and heal them using the self empowering new techniques of Energy Psychology, specifically Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). It includes many personal stories of how to use this wonderful new method to transform your experience of being sensitive into feeling its true power and gift in you.

Using a supposed disability to stay safe and stuck

In her article Thoughts on Psychological Reversal, she talks about a man she worked with, who was challenged with ADD. “Tapping” refers to one of the main techniques of EFT therapy or self-help.

“The problem—’my learning disability,’ which over the years in this sensitive person had been a difficult challenge for him – was now something that was limiting his progress. Now he wanted to move ahead, but his unconscious mind had become committed to keeping him safe from failing.

“Way back there in his past, somehow, he had brilliantly but mistakenly turned his ‘learning disability’ into a strategy. Its positive intention was to keep him safe from a judging, critical world—in which he felt alien and ineffective.

“We tapped on all the statements we had elicited, using them as set-up statements, beginning of course with tapping on the side of his hand. He ended the session in a state of meditation, staring into the flame of the candle on my table, saying quietly:

“Whenever this confusion comes up now, I know I have a choice. I can always choose to honor the flame at the core of my being.”

~ ~ ~

“Experts like Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, Cheryl Richardson, Bruce Lipton, Joe Vitale, Dr. Joseph Mercola and so many others have come out in support of Tapping…These experts aren’t just casually saying they think it’s ‘ok’ – they’re saying that they use and and fully endorse it as a powerful tool for creating the life you want.” [From The Tapping Solution site.]

[Note - The Wikipedia page on EFT lists some criticisms, but also has references to positive clinical research studies.]

Learn more about meridian tapping and Emotional Freedom Techniques (including a video) on the Anxiety Relief Solutions page: The Tapping Solution – Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), and on The Tapping Solution site.

Emotional Freedom Techniques, high sensitivity personality, highly sensitive people, highly sensitive books, emotional balance, emotional intelligence programs, meridian tapping