Jill Loree
What is shyness anyways? What, for that matter, does it mean to feel inferior, or less than? In short, it’s nothing else but pride. And here’s why.
Whenever we are overly concerned with how others see us, afraid of what they will think of us and the impression we are making, we are being proud, or vain. For pride and vanity are the same thing.
And shyness is one form of this. Another is being brash, cocky, arrogant. It’s just a question of a person’s character and temperament as to which one shows up.
And if we dig under all our inferiority complexes—our feeling that we are somehow “less than”—we’ll find the common denominators of pride and self-will.
Why self-will? Because we so crave the gratification of our pride that it affects the way we act. We either act more secure than we really feel and are therefore not being true to ourselves. Or else we let the strength of our self-will paralize us, making us shy.
And whenever pride and self-will show up—which are two of our three main faults—the third one, fear, is always also present.
What are we afraid?
We humans, of course, are famous for rationalizing and covering up our feelings and explaining them away. We like to whitewash ourselves, pretending our struggles have nothing to do with us.
But if we are not concerned about what other people think…if we are secure in ourselves and true to ourselves, as we are right now…if we have the courage to be what and who we are, then fear can’t touch us.
When we feel shy, then, we are unconsciously afraid—in an hidden part of our psyche—that others will see we are not how we pretend to be. What’s more, we’re afraid we won’t have our pride and self-will satisfied.
If this weren’t true, we wouldn’t have an inferiority complex. And then we couldn’t be shy.
To be clear, feeling inferior has nothing to do with our actual value and worth, or true greatness. It only exists because we want to be more, or better, than we are.
So, if we want to be free from our fears and anxieties, we need to look more closely at all our feelings—including our fear—whenever we feel inferior.
– The Guide’s wisdom in Jill Loree’s words
Adapted from the Pathwork Q&A on shyness. Discover more on The Guide Speaks, a complete collection of answers to thousands of questions asked of the Pathwork Guide.
