I feel uncomfortable around my own friends.

Hey there!

Nothing at all is wrong with you,Don't worry. <3 I've faced the same thing too, and still do. I know it sometimes feel as if you force yourself to join in, even when it feels unnatural. That is certainly good practice for work, and university. However, what you can do to overcome the situation now, ( before sixth form/ college), is that you can make a list on a piece of paper of the things you enjoy, come up with about 6. Then make a list of what you look for in a friend. The first list ( for yourself), can be used when you feel left out, the things on there are things you can do by yourself, but you can also do those things with someone else if you find them to genuinely like who you are as a person and the activity. The second thing/ list, when you talk to someone in the first 60 secs, you'll have a rough idea of what type of a person they are. Don't force yourself to like someone your heart is saying " no" to. Instead focus on the people who your heart has said "yes" or "maybe.. I can risk it" to. Those categories will make you feel more at ease and will avoid stress. Then all you need to do is develop this thought, be friendly, get to know them. And do a few activities they like and a few you like. If you need any more help, just message me! I'd love to talk to you and help you out. That's a promise. xxx

Thanks for all the advice, it was really helpful I'll try out that activity you mentioned to see how it works for me. I really just want to build up my confidence in talking to people. When I feel more comfortable about the situation I may message you if anything else comes up. But thanks heaps for your time xxx

Thanks for making this post. Shifting this and getting lasting change will be an active process you can engage in over time. You will have to change your perspectives, spend time learning new skills and actively participating in a developing journey of self-change if you want to shift this. I'm hoping in this post I can give you a rough idea of some of the sorts of places you might be heading over this time...

Firstly, make a commitment to change. An inner commitment so deeply held to transform this. You don't need to know how you're going to do this yet, or even what you're going to do in order to affect this change. You might have no idea yet what to do or where to start. I'm guessing seeing as you've made this post that you're already interested in some level on making changes here. It likely won't just be one change or quick fix that sets you straight (in fact, this is incredibly unlikely). There are a number of perspectives here underpinning each other which need working on, as well as skills which can be learnt and qualities you can cultivate in order to make this work worthwhile. Make an active commitment to change, a real inner commitment to do something about this. To TAKE ACTION and to keep doing things, to work on this actively over the coming days, weeks and months.

Next, I'm going to share some things about change in general. All of us can change as humans, and do change. It is not the case that some people are 'shy people' and some people are 'confident people'. Why's that? Because language is too simple and general in order to explain something as complicated as the reality. "I am shy" is a JUDGEMENT of yourself. It is not THE REALITY ITSELF. The reality is more complicated than you could really pin down satisfactorily in language. It might be worth learning about (and doing) cognitive behavioural therapy here. A book called "Change your thinking with CBT" by Dr Sarah Edelman will probably be useful for you here. It certainly has served me being aware of CBT. It gives you a way of analyzing your thinking, noticing and eliminating generalisations and assumptions and attempting to become more 'rational' in general. This would really serve you I feel, and I think CBT is definitely worth looking into and practising.

It's not the case that we have our "formative years" and then we're fully baked as a human being. Brain plasticity is a big thing. You may have learnt to be a certain way habitually, but you CAN change your way of being in the world. This is absolutely possible. It often doesn't happen overnight, but it is absolutely possible and in fact it will definitely happen if you keep applying different perspectives, working creatively through this and try out all different things to work through this and to creatively apply a new 'way of being' in life.

One of the biggest things to shift will be this whole thing of caring what other people think about you. This is neurotic and completely based around the ego. You may be shocked when I say this. I always thought that when I was being self-conscious, that I was being the opposite of operating through my ego, because surely being egoistic is all about bigging yourself up and thinking you're great, not doubting yourself. Well, somebody once said to me before a performance, "Stop being so self-obsessed. It's really egoistic. Focus on the performance." I was surprised by this, but he was right. If you think about it, if you're doubting yourself, it's all about your ego, it's all about you you you. To be comfortable in yourself and to focus your attention to others and serve them and communicate with them is a healthy way is really cool because it's focusing yourself towards other people and not just yourself.

The reason you have been experiencing fear when contemplating the judgements of others is that you're currently routing your sense of self through them. What do I mean by this? You are using them like a mirror into yourself. If they say they don't like you, then that hurts. Why? Because you're allowing them to co-create your sense of self. Think about it. If you were creating your sense of self on your own, then other people's judgements wouldn't bother you, because they're not part of the self you're actively creating. But if you're allowing them to co-create YOUR sense of self, then THEIR judgements are being allowed to affect YOU and your very self. Is this serving you? It really isn't because it's generating loads of fear. Part of what it would really serve you to do is to engineer your sense of self BY yourself. A useful book to recommend a this point is "The Discerning Heart: The Developmental Psychology of Robert Kegan" by Philip M Lewis. Kegan identifies certain stages of our development of self, and by understanding and recognizing what stage you're at in Kegan's terminology, you'll know where you want to be (it seems probable that you're at stage 3 and want to transcend to stage 4). This'll give you an idea of the direction you're headed in. Remember - you're a developing human being who has hopefully by this point decided to embark on a journey of change. So what you used to do isn't of much interest to you any more; it's where you're headed that's important.

You are who you're becoming. You're not who you were. Remember that.

Some general pointers on this kind of change: Look for difference. Notice difference. What do I mean by this? If fear comes, ask yourself how it's different to the fear you've experienced before. Scan for differences in the way you're responding. Not similarities. I'll give you an example: If you start to feel scared, you may be inclined to think, "Oh no, the fear's back, I've made no progress!". STOP. This is looking for sameness. Look for difference instead. "Ah...the sensations I call fear are not quite as pronounced as I remember them being in the past. That's fantastic!". See? Praise yourself, praise progress. Don't be too hard on yourself. Self-judging, self-criticizing is NOT going to help here. Be your own best friend. Be your own mentor. Support yourself. There's no point being your own worst critic - see if you can really become a good friend to yourself. I had a realization a few months ago, which was this: I can't guarantee there'll be anybody on my side. Maybe I might get to the point in the future where everyone hates me. Then I realized something really quite profound (to me, anyway): I can be that guy who looks out for myself. If everybody hates me, I can be the one person that backs myself up. That loves myself and supports myself. I'm not talking here of a weird egoic love of self (that isn't going to help really), I'm talking about the kind of love of compassion. Obviously I don't want to target this love JUST towards myself - I want to target it towards everyone. But I really think there's something in loving yourself on some level...a kind of compassion TOWARDS yourself, a kind of forgiveness, a kind of acceptance. This is good to cultivate through a practice of MINDFULNESS. Mindfulness and mindfulness meditation is a big thing which I'm sure you'll find really, really, really useful. "Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World" by Mark Williams & Danny Penman is a GREAT BOOK with an eight week mindfulness course and attached CD and I KEEP recommending it on here, probably in every other post, because it's so damn good. You have to practise it, of course; the authors won't do that for you. But I'm sure it's very likely to be of service to you here...

Learn about body language. There's a lot of material on this. Keith Johnstone's book "Impro" is a good one (although NOT entirely about body language by any means - it's actually a book about improvisational theatre, but it has a good chapter on status and status dynamics). It teaches about low status and high status dynamics and body language. You've probably been a habitual low status player for some time. If you can learn about high status body language and start incorporating it into your life, that would be really useful.

Step out of a victim orientation and a victim space. Stop being a victim to life and a victim to your own thoughts. OWN your thoughts, own your responsibilities and power. Step up to your power in life and your responsibility. Remember judgements such as "I am shy" are MEANINGLESS JUDGEMENTS because they are two simple to actually be of any service. You are WAY more than "shy" could ever describe you; you are an intricate, complex, incredible human being with a wealth of resources, a huge capacity for change supported by brain plasticity and so much more. You are really complex, don't be dragged down by definitions like "shy" and "confident", they are ultimately meaningless. Discovering mindfulness will actually teach you a lot about that on a profound level.

What more can I say? Book recommendation: "Focusing" by Eugene T. Gendlin. Focusing is HUGE but can be very difficult for some people to utilize and master. If you can get good at focusing, that's already a huge boon in self-empowerment and self-development.

Very likely you'll also have to work on social skills. "Brilliant Communication Skills" by Gill Hasson may help you here. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie is a great book too, but WARNING: Make sure you're coming from the right place here. Your aim should NOT be to people-please or to have social validation or to not tread over anybody or anything like that. That's egoic, neurosis-obsessed insecurity. It's also NOT about how you're being "Perceived". Learn social skills in order to CREATE the kind of relationships you want with people. Think about what you're creating, what you're perceiving, NOT how others are 'perceiving you'. This whole focus needs to change from 'how you're being perceived' to 'what you're creating' if you want to transcend this whole social approval thing. So remember to come from the right place when learning about social skills.

Last recommendation, "Drive Yourself Sane: The Uncommon Sense of General Semantics" by Kodish & Kodish. Goes in deep, but explores in more depth some of the things I've been saying here and gives you a framework for understanding reality.

A theoretical book that goes in REALLY deep is "The Construction of Social Reality" by John R. Searle. Truth be told, this probably won't be of much practical use to you at all, but it's an awesome theoretical book if you're interested in that kind of philosophy. I'm assuming you are now you're interested in self-change and how to influence reality, but it may be a bit too deep and heavy and theoretical etc for you. Who knows?

I know this is an enormously long post, but I don't apologize for that. It's long because I'm engaged in a journey of self-transformation too, and I know from personal experience that it can be a hugely empowering and enlightening thing to do in order to engage on this kind of journey. If you EVER need anything, please get in touch (I notice you're anonymous though, so I don't know entirely how that works). I can empathize with you here as I used to play low status a lot and be very self-conscious too. I still have my moments but I'm getting better. Remember - it's a process of organic change and development, not a magical quick fix, that is likely to present lasting change here. The really important thing is to make a commitment to do this and to become more confident and self-authoring etc, because if you have that desire, and apply lots of creative thinking, then frankly, it will happen eventually. Remember that you're going to be changing here; forget about holding onto your old assumptions and beliefs about reality because they weren't solving you and they might have had a positive intention, but they were just holding you back. It's going to feel different over time, but I really believe it's worth it.

All the best times a million!

Thanks for making this post. Shifting this and getting lasting change will be an active process you can engage in over time. You will have to change your perspectives, spend time learning new skills and actively participating in a developing journey of self-change if you want to shift this. I'm hoping in this post I can give you a rough idea of some of the sorts of places you might be heading over this time...

Firstly, make a commitment to change. An inner commitment so deeply held to transform this. You don't need to know how you're going to do this yet, or even what you're going to do in order to affect this change. You might have no idea yet what to do or where to start. I'm guessing seeing as you've made this post that you're already interested in some level on making changes here. It likely won't just be one change or quick fix that sets you straight (in fact, this is incredibly unlikely). There are a number of perspectives here underpinning each other which need working on, as well as skills which can be learnt and qualities you can cultivate in order to make this work worthwhile. Make an active commitment to change, a real inner commitment to do something about this. To TAKE ACTION and to keep doing things, to work on this actively over the coming days, weeks and months.

Next, I'm going to share some things about change in general. All of us can change as humans, and do change. It is not the case that some people are 'shy people' and some people are 'confident people'. Why's that? Because language is too simple and general in order to explain something as complicated as the reality. "I am shy" is a JUDGEMENT of yourself. It is not THE REALITY ITSELF. The reality is more complicated than you could really pin down satisfactorily in language. It might be worth learning about (and doing) cognitive behavioural therapy here. A book called "Change your thinking with CBT" by Dr Sarah Edelman will probably be useful for you here. It certainly has served me being aware of CBT. It gives you a way of analyzing your thinking, noticing and eliminating generalisations and assumptions and attempting to become more 'rational' in general. This would really serve you I feel, and I think CBT is definitely worth looking into and practising.

It's not the case that we have our "formative years" and then we're fully baked as a human being. Brain plasticity is a big thing. You may have learnt to be a certain way habitually, but you CAN change your way of being in the world. This is absolutely possible. It often doesn't happen overnight, but it is absolutely possible and in fact it will definitely happen if you keep applying different perspectives, working creatively through this and try out all different things to work through this and to creatively apply a new 'way of being' in life.

One of the biggest things to shift will be this whole thing of caring what other people think about you. This is neurotic and completely based around the ego. You may be shocked when I say this. I always thought that when I was being self-conscious, that I was being the opposite of operating through my ego, because surely being egoistic is all about bigging yourself up and thinking you're great, not doubting yourself. Well, somebody once said to me before a performance, "Stop being so self-obsessed. It's really egoistic. Focus on the performance." I was surprised by this, but he was right. If you think about it, if you're doubting yourself, it's all about your ego, it's all about you you you. To be comfortable in yourself and to focus your attention to others and serve them and communicate with them is a healthy way is really cool because it's focusing yourself towards other people and not just yourself.

The reason you have been experiencing fear when contemplating the judgements of others is that you're currently routing your sense of self through them. What do I mean by this? You are using them like a mirror into yourself. If they say they don't like you, then that hurts. Why? Because you're allowing them to co-create your sense of self. Think about it. If you were creating your sense of self on your own, then other people's judgements wouldn't bother you, because they're not part of the self you're actively creating. But if you're allowing them to co-create YOUR sense of self, then THEIR judgements are being allowed to affect YOU and your very self. Is this serving you? It really isn't because it's generating loads of fear. Part of what it would really serve you to do is to engineer your sense of self BY yourself. A useful book to recommend a this point is "The Discerning Heart: The Developmental Psychology of Robert Kegan" by Philip M Lewis. Kegan identifies certain stages of our development of self, and by understanding and recognizing what stage you're at in Kegan's terminology, you'll know where you want to be (it seems probable that you're at stage 3 and want to transcend to stage 4). This'll give you an idea of the direction you're headed in. Remember - you're a developing human being who has hopefully by this point decided to embark on a journey of change. So what you used to do isn't of much interest to you any more; it's where you're headed that's important.

You are who you're becoming. You're not who you were. Remember that.

Some general pointers on this kind of change: Look for difference. Notice difference. What do I mean by this? If fear comes, ask yourself how it's different to the fear you've experienced before. Scan for differences in the way you're responding. Not similarities. I'll give you an example: If you start to feel scared, you may be inclined to think, "Oh no, the fear's back, I've made no progress!". STOP. This is looking for sameness. Look for difference instead. "Ah...the sensations I call fear are not quite as pronounced as I remember them being in the past. That's fantastic!". See? Praise yourself, praise progress. Don't be too hard on yourself. Self-judging, self-criticizing is NOT going to help here. Be your own best friend. Be your own mentor. Support yourself. There's no point being your own worst critic - see if you can really become a good friend to yourself. I had a realization a few months ago, which was this: I can't guarantee there'll be anybody on my side. Maybe I might get to the point in the future where everyone hates me. Then I realized something really quite profound (to me, anyway): I can be that guy who looks out for myself. If everybody hates me, I can be the one person that backs myself up. That loves myself and supports myself. I'm not talking here of a weird egoic love of self (that isn't going to help really), I'm talking about the kind of love of compassion. Obviously I don't want to target this love JUST towards myself - I want to target it towards everyone. But I really think there's something in loving yourself on some level...a kind of compassion TOWARDS yourself, a kind of forgiveness, a kind of acceptance. This is good to cultivate through a practice of MINDFULNESS. Mindfulness and mindfulness meditation is a big thing which I'm sure you'll find really, really, really useful. "Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World" by Mark Williams & Danny Penman is a GREAT BOOK with an eight week mindfulness course and attached CD and I KEEP recommending it on here, probably in every other post, because it's so damn good. You have to practise it, of course; the authors won't do that for you. But I'm sure it's very likely to be of service to you here...

Learn about body language. There's a lot of material on this. Keith Johnstone's book "Impro" is a good one (although NOT entirely about body language by any means - it's actually a book about improvisational theatre, but it has a good chapter on status and status dynamics). It teaches about low status and high status dynamics and body language. You've probably been a habitual low status player for some time. If you can learn about high status body language and start incorporating it into your life, that would be really useful.

Step out of a victim orientation and a victim space. Stop being a victim to life and a victim to your own thoughts. OWN your thoughts, own your responsibilities and power. Step up to your power in life and your responsibility. Remember judgements such as "I am shy" are MEANINGLESS JUDGEMENTS because they are two simple to actually be of any service. You are WAY more than "shy" could ever describe you; you are an intricate, complex, incredible human being with a wealth of resources, a huge capacity for change supported by brain plasticity and so much more. You are really complex, don't be dragged down by definitions like "shy" and "confident", they are ultimately meaningless. Discovering mindfulness will actually teach you a lot about that on a profound level.

What more can I say? Book recommendation: "Focusing" by Eugene T. Gendlin. Focusing is HUGE but can be very difficult for some people to utilize and master. If you can get good at focusing, that's already a huge boon in self-empowerment and self-development.

Very likely you'll also have to work on social skills. "Brilliant Communication Skills" by Gill Hasson may help you here. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie is a great book too, but WARNING: Make sure you're coming from the right place here. Your aim should NOT be to people-please or to have social validation or to not tread over anybody or anything like that. That's egoic, neurosis-obsessed insecurity. It's also NOT about how you're being "Perceived". Learn social skills in order to CREATE the kind of relationships you want with people. Think about what you're creating, what you're perceiving, NOT how others are 'perceiving you'. This whole focus needs to change from 'how you're being perceived' to 'what you're creating' if you want to transcend this whole social approval thing. So remember to come from the right place when learning about social skills.

Last recommendation, "Drive Yourself Sane: The Uncommon Sense of General Semantics" by Kodish & Kodish. Goes in deep, but explores in more depth some of the things I've been saying here and gives you a framework for understanding reality.

A theoretical book that goes in REALLY deep is "The Construction of Social Reality" by John R. Searle. Truth be told, this probably won't be of much practical use to you at all, but it's an awesome theoretical book if you're interested in that kind of philosophy. I'm assuming you are now you're interested in self-change and how to influence reality, but it may be a bit too deep and heavy and theoretical etc for you. Who knows?

I know this is an enormously long post, but I don't apologize for that. It's long because I'm engaged in a journey of self-transformation too, and I know from personal experience that it can be a hugely empowering and enlightening thing to do in order to engage on this kind of journey. If you EVER need anything, please get in touch (I notice you're anonymous though, so I don't know entirely how that works). I can empathize with you here as I used to play low status a lot and be very self-conscious too. I still have my moments but I'm getting better. Remember - it's a process of organic change and development, not a magical quick fix, that is likely to present lasting change here. The really important thing is to make a commitment to do this and to become more confident and self-authoring etc, because if you have that desire, and apply lots of creative thinking, then frankly, it will happen eventually. Remember that you're going to be changing here; forget about holding onto your old assumptions and beliefs about reality because they weren't serving you and they might have had a positive intention, but they were just holding you back. It's going to feel different over time, but I really believe it's worth it.

All the best times a million!

I'm sorry I'm making a big deal out of it. It's just how I feel.

Hey, that post was really unfair. Your not making a 'big deal of it'. You cant help the way you feel. I have social anxiety, I had some CBT and it helped massively. PM me if you ever feel you need to talk to someone id be happy to share some of the techniques that my CBT therapist taught me. good luck with everything xx

Posted from TSR Mobile

Thanks for this I've not actually been diagnosed or anything so I can't say I have social anxiety or not - it's just that this has been going on for a while now and it's just been getting worse atm so I decided to make a thread about this because I'm really unsure about my feelings and thoughts etc. Do you have any tips on how to overcome this? xx

I suffered a similar problem and boi am I so much better now
its definitely definitely made me a better person
my brains fried so sorry I cant give good advice but feel free to pm me anytime yeh like kiddo

What happened so that you could overcome everything? and cheers, if I have any questions I'll sure let you know

I just did what I wanted and got out there
dont let others hold yeh back and try be the first one to do stuff
itl give yeh great confidence...be your own person and dont follow the flock in ways...take opportunities to improve yourself socially etc...
hang around with people who make yeh feel good get me

it all comes together over time

It's more myself that's holding me back, not other people - I think that's what I need to overcome but cheers anyways for the advice

oh I know im the same...but sometimes people will say stuff like youre not up for that etc...or see yeh in a certain light...you dont have to stay in their box and doubt yourself is what I mean

look if yeh want a bit of practice man pm me and Il be happy to chat and practice or whatnot

Oh okay, I guess that makes sense and yeah, I'll pm you some time, maybe if I feel like it. Sorry for the late reply btw.

Thanks for making this post. Shifting this and getting lasting change will be an active process you can engage in over time. You will have to change your perspectives, spend time learning new skills and actively participating in a developing journey of self-change if you want to shift this. I'm hoping in this post I can give you a rough idea of some of the sorts of places you might be heading over this time...

Firstly, make a commitment to change. An inner commitment so deeply held to transform this. You don't need to know how you're going to do this yet, or even what you're going to do in order to affect this change. You might have no idea yet what to do or where to start. I'm guessing seeing as you've made this post that you're already interested in some level on making changes here. It likely won't just be one change or quick fix that sets you straight (in fact, this is incredibly unlikely). There are a number of perspectives here underpinning each other which need working on, as well as skills which can be learnt and qualities you can cultivate in order to make this work worthwhile. Make an active commitment to change, a real inner commitment to do something about this. To TAKE ACTION and to keep doing things, to work on this actively over the coming days, weeks and months.

Next, I'm going to share some things about change in general. All of us can change as humans, and do change. It is not the case that some people are 'shy people' and some people are 'confident people'. Why's that? Because language is too simple and general in order to explain something as complicated as the reality. "I am shy" is a JUDGEMENT of yourself. It is not THE REALITY ITSELF. The reality is more complicated than you could really pin down satisfactorily in language. It might be worth learning about (and doing) cognitive behavioural therapy here. A book called "Change your thinking with CBT" by Dr Sarah Edelman will probably be useful for you here. It certainly has served me being aware of CBT. It gives you a way of analyzing your thinking, noticing and eliminating generalisations and assumptions and attempting to become more 'rational' in general. This would really serve you I feel, and I think CBT is definitely worth looking into and practising.

It's not the case that we have our "formative years" and then we're fully baked as a human being. Brain plasticity is a big thing. You may have learnt to be a certain way habitually, but you CAN change your way of being in the world. This is absolutely possible. It often doesn't happen overnight, but it is absolutely possible and in fact it will definitely happen if you keep applying different perspectives, working creatively through this and try out all different things to work through this and to creatively apply a new 'way of being' in life.

One of the biggest things to shift will be this whole thing of caring what other people think about you. This is neurotic and completely based around the ego. You may be shocked when I say this. I always thought that when I was being self-conscious, that I was being the opposite of operating through my ego, because surely being egoistic is all about bigging yourself up and thinking you're great, not doubting yourself. Well, somebody once said to me before a performance, "Stop being so self-obsessed. It's really egoistic. Focus on the performance." I was surprised by this, but he was right. If you think about it, if you're doubting yourself, it's all about your ego, it's all about you you you. To be comfortable in yourself and to focus your attention to others and serve them and communicate with them is a healthy way is really cool because it's focusing yourself towards other people and not just yourself.

The reason you have been experiencing fear when contemplating the judgements of others is that you're currently routing your sense of self through them. What do I mean by this? You are using them like a mirror into yourself. If they say they don't like you, then that hurts. Why? Because you're allowing them to co-create your sense of self. Think about it. If you were creating your sense of self on your own, then other people's judgements wouldn't bother you, because they're not part of the self you're actively creating. But if you're allowing them to co-create YOUR sense of self, then THEIR judgements are being allowed to affect YOU and your very self. Is this serving you? It really isn't because it's generating loads of fear. Part of what it would really serve you to do is to engineer your sense of self BY yourself. A useful book to recommend a this point is "The Discerning Heart: The Developmental Psychology of Robert Kegan" by Philip M Lewis. Kegan identifies certain stages of our development of self, and by understanding and recognizing what stage you're at in Kegan's terminology, you'll know where you want to be (it seems probable that you're at stage 3 and want to transcend to stage 4). This'll give you an idea of the direction you're headed in. Remember - you're a developing human being who has hopefully by this point decided to embark on a journey of change. So what you used to do isn't of much interest to you any more; it's where you're headed that's important.

You are who you're becoming. You're not who you were. Remember that.

Some general pointers on this kind of change: Look for difference. Notice difference. What do I mean by this? If fear comes, ask yourself how it's different to the fear you've experienced before. Scan for differences in the way you're responding. Not similarities. I'll give you an example: If you start to feel scared, you may be inclined to think, "Oh no, the fear's back, I've made no progress!". STOP. This is looking for sameness. Look for difference instead. "Ah...the sensations I call fear are not quite as pronounced as I remember them being in the past. That's fantastic!". See? Praise yourself, praise progress. Don't be too hard on yourself. Self-judging, self-criticizing is NOT going to help here. Be your own best friend. Be your own mentor. Support yourself. There's no point being your own worst critic - see if you can really become a good friend to yourself. I had a realization a few months ago, which was this: I can't guarantee there'll be anybody on my side. Maybe I might get to the point in the future where everyone hates me. Then I realized something really quite profound (to me, anyway): I can be that guy who looks out for myself. If everybody hates me, I can be the one person that backs myself up. That loves myself and supports myself. I'm not talking here of a weird egoic love of self (that isn't going to help really), I'm talking about the kind of love of compassion. Obviously I don't want to target this love JUST towards myself - I want to target it towards everyone. But I really think there's something in loving yourself on some level...a kind of compassion TOWARDS yourself, a kind of forgiveness, a kind of acceptance. This is good to cultivate through a practice of MINDFULNESS. Mindfulness and mindfulness meditation is a big thing which I'm sure you'll find really, really, really useful. "Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World" by Mark Williams & Danny Penman is a GREAT BOOK with an eight week mindfulness course and attached CD and I KEEP recommending it on here, probably in every other post, because it's so damn good. You have to practise it, of course; the authors won't do that for you. But I'm sure it's very likely to be of service to you here...

Learn about body language. There's a lot of material on this. Keith Johnstone's book "Impro" is a good one (although NOT entirely about body language by any means - it's actually a book about improvisational theatre, but it has a good chapter on status and status dynamics). It teaches about low status and high status dynamics and body language. You've probably been a habitual low status player for some time. If you can learn about high status body language and start incorporating it into your life, that would be really useful.

Step out of a victim orientation and a victim space. Stop being a victim to life and a victim to your own thoughts. OWN your thoughts, own your responsibilities and power. Step up to your power in life and your responsibility. Remember judgements such as "I am shy" are MEANINGLESS JUDGEMENTS because they are two simple to actually be of any service. You are WAY more than "shy" could ever describe you; you are an intricate, complex, incredible human being with a wealth of resources, a huge capacity for change supported by brain plasticity and so much more. You are really complex, don't be dragged down by definitions like "shy" and "confident", they are ultimately meaningless. Discovering mindfulness will actually teach you a lot about that on a profound level.

What more can I say? Book recommendation: "Focusing" by Eugene T. Gendlin. Focusing is HUGE but can be very difficult for some people to utilize and master. If you can get good at focusing, that's already a huge boon in self-empowerment and self-development.

Very likely you'll also have to work on social skills. "Brilliant Communication Skills" by Gill Hasson may help you here. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie is a great book too, but WARNING: Make sure you're coming from the right place here. Your aim should NOT be to people-please or to have social validation or to not tread over anybody or anything like that. That's egoic, neurosis-obsessed insecurity. It's also NOT about how you're being "Perceived". Learn social skills in order to CREATE the kind of relationships you want with people. Think about what you're creating, what you're perceiving, NOT how others are 'perceiving you'. This whole focus needs to change from 'how you're being perceived' to 'what you're creating' if you want to transcend this whole social approval thing. So remember to come from the right place when learning about social skills.

Last recommendation, "Drive Yourself Sane: The Uncommon Sense of General Semantics" by Kodish & Kodish. Goes in deep, but explores in more depth some of the things I've been saying here and gives you a framework for understanding reality.

A theoretical book that goes in REALLY deep is "The Construction of Social Reality" by John R. Searle. Truth be told, this probably won't be of much practical use to you at all, but it's an awesome theoretical book if you're interested in that kind of philosophy. I'm assuming you are now you're interested in self-change and how to influence reality, but it may be a bit too deep and heavy and theoretical etc for you. Who knows?

I know this is an enormously long post, but I don't apologize for that. It's long because I'm engaged in a journey of self-transformation too, and I know from personal experience that it can be a hugely empowering and enlightening thing to do in order to engage on this kind of journey. If you EVER need anything, please get in touch (I notice you're anonymous though, so I don't know entirely how that works). I can empathize with you here as I used to play low status a lot and be very self-conscious too. I still have my moments but I'm getting better. Remember - it's a process of organic change and development, not a magical quick fix, that is likely to present lasting change here. The really important thing is to make a commitment to do this and to become more confident and self-authoring etc, because if you have that desire, and apply lots of creative thinking, then frankly, it will happen eventually. Remember that you're going to be changing here; forget about holding onto your old assumptions and beliefs about reality because they weren't serving you and they might have had a positive intention, but they were just holding you back. It's going to feel different over time, but I really believe it's worth it.

All the best times a million!