I truly enjoy your comments because they are deep and meaningful. However, I think you are confusing Matt a little bit. Your comments come from a very philosophical “state of being” mindset. I understand exactly what you are writing but for someone who’s learning to grow, your perspective is a bit difficult to grasp.

For someone to grow, we want to give him the right focus instead of telling him how to think or what to think. If you explain how to think too much, you are asking him to stay in his head instead of taking REAL action that will bring him REAL results.

I liked reading your comment.

But, I am afraid that what you understood is exactly the opposite of what I was trying to convey.

If you will accentuate the positive you will only create a gap in your brain.

A gap between the state in which you currently are to the state you want to be in.

That will result in a perpetual conflict which will never resolve.

For example, like you said in your comment to Khiem (in different words):

I am now worry about what I think about me, but I need not to worry.

If you do want to accentuate…accentuate the NEGATIVE and not the POSITIVE.

For example, say: I need to negate the desire to be “worry free”

If you willl be able to do this, you will experience a great tranquility (in what you are) in times of crisis.

Because you will be worry….but now also OK with it. (not trying to escapse to some sort of ideal state which doesn’t really exist).

Hope this helps.

Will be happy to hear what you think.

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. I need to not worry about what I think about me, get over it and open my mouth and just talk. That makes sense.

I will try to explain Amir’s thoughts in simpler terms.

Basically, there’s nothing wrong with being shy. What Amir is trying to explain is that you want to stop labeling yourself one way or the other. You especially want to stop describing yourself with negative traits.

By always giving yourself negative traits, your mind gets trained to NOT accept itself. For you to progress, you want to learn to accept ALL things about you first.

Shyness, confidence, being social, being attractive are ALL different aspects that you already have inside. You don’t have to change yourself to be one or the other. They are all inside of you already but you have to choose which behaviors you act out more.

It’s like muscles. You have all the right muscles in your body to be good looking but you have to train them more if you want a certain image to come out first.

I will try to explain what I mean from a different angle.

Did you notice that our brain works on opposites?

You are shy, and you want to be not shy.
You are fearful, and you want to be courageous.
You are not good looking, and you want to be good looking.

The fact is that you are shy, fearful, and think that we are not good looking (for example) and the ideation is what you hope to be: not shy, non-fearful, better looking.

You may desire to be in those states in the future, but you are not in those states right now.

Now, think about this…

One day you want to pick a woman on the street.
Then at the moment when you think about picking her up.
Your “monkey chatter” starts to operate.

For example:
I can’t pick her up because I am too shy.
I can’t pick her up, I am not courageous enough.
I can’t pick her, I must look better.

This creates a gap in your brain between what you currently are (shy, fearful, not good looking state), to the opposite of what you want to be (not shy, not fearful, better looking).

And this gap, is what causes you no to act. This gap is the place where the ‘monkey chatter” comes to action.

Notice: What causes us not to act is NOT the fact that we don’t posses the characteristics that we think we need, but the GAP itself causes us not to act.

Yet, when you negate the idea state (not shy, not fearful, better looking) that you desire to be in, in order to progress in life, you break this pattern.

You are just in the state when you are shy, fearful, and think that you are not good looking.

Yet now, these thoughts have no meaning.

They only have vitality, power, and meaning when their opposites exist.

I really hope that I explained myself better now.

It is like being dissatisfied with your current wife, for example, only because you think that there are better wives out there. Yet, when you discard the notion that there are better wives out there, your wife is just fine.

Now, if you are able to negate the positive action.

You just see a beautiful women, and walk straight to pick her up because all your past resistances don’t exist.

The “monkey chatter” doesn’t say to you that you are:

Shy, but you need to be not shy.
Fearful, but you need to be courageous.
Not good looking, and you want to be good looking.

You just see and act, with no gap in between.

I hope that what I have written now is more easy to grasp, but if you don’t think so, ask me a question, and I will answer.

Thanks.

If I do not try to change how can I improve my situation?

You’re telling me to continue to be quiet and if I do nothing things will change? This makes no sense to me. I understand the concept of, to quote an old song, “if you choose not to decide you still have made a chioce” but the idea that if I make no attempt to improve my sociability that things will magically turn around is a totally foreign concept to me.

I loved reading your post; I see that you speak from the heart and I truly want to give you my best point of view on this serious issue.

I know that you may disagree, but this is how I view things.

You said:

“How am I supposed to just “flick a switch” in my head and change?”

And my answer is: You can never ever change, and you shouldn’t aspire to.

Because there isn’t any YOU which is separated from THE PROBEM you have.

The separation is only verbal and not factual.

You know it is like the little malign spyware that penetrates to our computers guised as a good antivirus program. This spyware tells you that you have to operate it for it to protect you against bad spywares.

This is paradoxical thing isn’t it?

If you are infected everything you will do in the computer will deepen the infection even further.

It is like putting out fire with gazillion.

What I want to say is, that after you are infected with erroneous knowledge, there isn’t any YOU which is separated from the knowledge in your head:

It is all knowledge – that is what we are – a bundle of knowledge manifested in thoughts.

We are what we think about basically.

So, if you ask:

“How am I supposed to just “flick a switch” in my head and change?”

I say:

Don’t try to change!

We all try to move forward all the time, and that is our problem?

I am here, but I want to be there.

I am A, but there is this guy which is B, and I want to be like him.

My switch is off, but I want it on.

Yet, when we truly realize the futility of all this effort to become different.
We cease to struggle, and then the “monkey chatter” in our heads (I want this, I am afraid of that, how can I, how should I) stops as well (because we are not trying to achieve anything)

If you are staying in you current state, and don’t try to change at all (which doesn’t mean stagnation).
There will be no “monkey chatter” in your head, and you will suddenly look and see that your switch is FLICKED).

I think the problem is that we are too much enslave to words, and don’t look on what’s actually going on.

If I didn’t explain myself properly, please comment on this comment and I will explain myself again.

Bye.

But as someone who has experienced a lifetime of negative reinforcement from the outside world, how am I supposed to just “flick a switch” in my head and change? Even a good dog, when beaten frequently enough, will start to believe he is bad.

I can see where this change in attitude would be possible for someone who was even reasonably attractive, just average or OK looking. But I am a looks-challenged kind of man and to be honest it is a rare occasion when i can get past a “hi, how are ya?” And when, on those too few and far between blue moons, I do get positive feedback, it is impossible for me to say anything else. To even THINK of anything else to say.

After having read several posts on several topics here, I am positive that it is in the way I carry myself and try to speak to people. Not JUST females but anyone. It is very frustrating to me because I know that I am a reasonably intelligent person, I have lots to say. But there is just more than “monkey chatter” in my head- I have years and years of ridicule and put downs and eye rolls and especially invitations to talk to someones hand reinforcing my shyness.

I have thought for years that i am probably just touched in the head. It takes me so long to become comfortable enough to open my mouth and say something, anything, that only a very few people have even been friends.

I keep trying, though. I refuse to stop making an attempt at some kind of social life. But maybe for some of us there is no hope and social intercourse is just lost to our lives.

Thank you for your comment.

I am sure going to post some more posts.

I just love this blog, and website.

I think that it is great that we can all join together in this one blog, and share valuable insights with one another.

We should really pay attention to the labels we give ourselves because they truly shape how we experience life. By labeling yourself one way or the other, you are reinforcing in your mind how the world should respond to you a certain way… and as funny as it sounds, it alters your behaviors tremendously.

Shyness is just another label…. just like smart or social or anything else. The more we see ourselves a certain way, the more we become that way.

It’s so funny how much power we hold on ourselves with just the labels we give ourselves… yet so many people are victims of those labels instead of realizing that they can alter their own fate by just CHOOSING which label they should give themselves.