Assertiveness Training: Overcoming Shyness
Despite popular misconception, assertiveness and aggressiveness are not the same thing. Assertive people don‟t dominate conversations or hog attention; aggressive people do. Assertive people are not rude, mean, cruel, and insensitive; aggressive people are. Aggressive people project a callous disrespect and disregard for everything and everyone – including (and especially) themselves. Assertive people merely project their own humble awareness of their inherent worth; and everyone is worthwhile – even you. Respect for other people, empathy for their feelings, and recognition of their worth are all underpinnings of an assertive personality. Resentment, frustration, impatience, and anger all cloud what could be a purely assertive into an aggressive act. Whenever possible, waiting to speak or act until you can do it from a place of calm respect free of resentment, frustration, impatience, and anger will transform the situation into one where everybody wins. By the same token, however, simply waiting out your negative feelings without taking incisive measures to relieve yourself of them, can lead to a build-up of negative emotions. This dangerous phenomenon is familiar to many of us as the “pressure-cooker” syndrome when unexpelled negative emotions build up to the point where we “blow our top”, usually in the wrong place at the wrong time and directed at the wrong people, in any case doing more harm than good.
Being genuinely assertive without aggression requires being responsible for your thoughts and feelings. There are many ways to do this, but however you do it, it must be done. Being responsible for our thoughts and feelings does not mean blaming and unloading on others. It means owning up to the thoughts and feelings we have and acting responsibly in accordance with them. In the case of the „pressure cooker‟ phenomenon, it is our resentment and frustration with ourselves for putting up with an unpleasant and intolerable scenario without affecting any change in it that leads to our inappropriate outbursts. It‟s ourselves we‟re mad at; not the other person. So don‟t take it out on them. Deal with the one responsible: yourself. Then and only then can you deal responsibly with anything and anyone outside yourself. But if the antithesis of assertiveness is aggressiveness, then what is shyness? Shyness is a fear-response; a prolonged „Flight‟ response. Actually, in the innate, unconscious „Fight-Flight‟ stress-response, Aggression is the „Fight‟ and shyness is the „Flight‟. The way out of this involuntary, unconscious, reactive state is through voluntary, conscious, responsiveness or response-ability: humble and self-assured Assertiveness. Learn to give constructive feedback in a timely manner, establish boundaries and set limits then honor them, and develop the ability to express your feelings respectfully and proactively, and you‟ll no longer lose control to inappropriate emotional outbursts. These are the qualities of being truly assertive. Shyness is a self-defeating pattern, for as you shirk from social interaction, you project yourself as socially awkward, creating a perception in others that validates your reasons for feeling shy, thereby keeping you locked into that unwanted frame of reference. Assertiveness without aggressiveness leads to hirings, promotions, improved relationships, and new opportunities galore. An assertive manner of being improves your quality and enjoyment of life.
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