Estragon: Don’t touch me! Don’t question me! Don’t speak to me! Stay with me!
Vladimir: Did I ever leave you?
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.
Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
I like lots of people around me… but don’t kiss hello, and please don’t touch!
Lou Reed, Songs for Drella, Imaginary quote from Andy Warhol
The level of shyness has gone up dramatically in the last decade. I think shyness is an index of social pathology rather than a pathology of the individual.
Philip Zimbardo
I spent the weekend before Christmas at a Tribal Gathering to celebrate the Winter Solstice. This included a series of dance workshops, all having the common thread of harnessing dance as a vibrant resource for doing inner work.
The combination of dance and family constellation work, for example, was new to me. It was not only innovative and fun, but also a very powerful combination for getting to the root of issues and to their speedy resolution. I am indebted to Mateo at the Christaland Community who led these workshops and from whom I hope to learn more in the new year.
While dancing has long been a passion of mine, I have never mastered couples dancing, always preferring to improvise as a free agent on the dance floor.
The weekend of workshops included sessions on Contact Improvisation Dance, The Wheel of Consent, Five Rhythms, a celebration of the Winter Solstice, and more. They presented me with the gift of identifying and working through traits which had hitherto never been so clearly visible to me.
In the introductory session, I did feel safe enough to verbalise my recurring dilemma in such settings.
„I generally feel an aversion to touching or being touched by strangers“ I stated when introducing myself, adding that this had been the case as far back as I could remember. It was nothing personal, not about the others, just an ingrained default reaction on my part.
Simply verbalising it among this bunch of strangers had the immediate effect of relieving pressure, leaving me feeling even more safe and gathered in my emotional and spiritual centre of gravity.
Reflecting on this old pattern — and dancing through it for the first time — led me to discovering several interesting facts about my default script which are outlined below.
Aversion to being touched by strangers is very common. Its most intense manifestation is referred to as „haphephobia“, an extreme fear of touch coupled with intense sensory sensitivity. Thankfully, my case is not that extreme, though it is interesting to note that the first thing I do on purchasing any new garment is to remove the labels, which, if they remained, would make it impossible for me to feel comfortable.
Whenever I find myself alone among strangers in a dance class for couples to learn something like foxtrot, a feeling of distress begins to arise, with accelerated heartbeat, increased sweating, and light nausea, such that I generally leave before the real action begins.
I console myself with the thoughts of how much I like dancing solo in a crowd, and even with fantasies that, one fine day, a beautiful partner will have sufficient patience and loving kindness to be able and willing to bear with me as I gradually master the moves, the rhythm, and the coordinated steps.
It seems many people force themselves to violate their own healthy boundaries due to the social pressure to play along with whatever is going on. This is just another piece of the jigsaw of self-alienation to which many of us fall foul in our formative years and beyond.
Let’s look at one example of the content of our weekend’s work, the Wheel of Consent, made up of four quadrants. It shines a spotlight on some questions which are all too often skipped over — „who is the active party“ in any interaction, and „who is the intended beneficiary“? The practice is intended to help us get clarity around our own boundaries and to stand firm whenever they might be threatened.
Working in pairs, rotating through the group to form a new pair for each of the four questions, we went through each quadrant of the wheel. Instead of muddling through issues such as touch, gifts, impulse, and expectation, the Wheel of Consent, developed by Dr. Betty Martin in the 1990’s, divides experience into the following four playful interactions:
Giving (Serving): I’m doing something for you because you asked, and I want to bring you delight.
Question: „How would you like me to touch you?“
Definition: I am doing; it is for her.
Receiving: You are doing something for me, responding to my expressed desire, my clear and explicit request.
Question: „Will you please touch me here, in this way?“
Definition: She is doing; it is for me.
Taking: I am doing something to you for my own enjoyment — only with your clear „yes“.
Question: „May I touch you here, in this way?“
Definition: I am doing, facilitated by her; it is for me.
Allowing: You do something for yourself with my permission, while I consciously agree to let you.
Question: „How would you like to touch me?“
Definition: She is doing, facilitated by me, and it is for her.
Several major issues became apparent to me during and immediately after this work.
The first is the deep shyness within me, both in the inner child and present adult aspects. Memories of my shy childhood bubbled up to the surface. My way of dealing with it then was to extract myself from whatever was going on through daydreaming. This was so apparent to my parents that I was quickly assigned the moniker „Paddy Last“. It seems to have worked in those initial formative single-digit years.
I know of no childhood photograph where I am looking into the camera. While my siblings are all looking directly into the camera, my gaze is always off to some imaginary point in the distance.
With the maturing of my intellect and my capacity for engaging in debate as a means of protecting myself, I switched over to „bravado“, an often adversarial, sometimes condescending approach that served me well later in life when, at work, I was busy ascending the hierarchical structures of multinational corporations.
„Give me your hardest nut and I will crack it“, seemed to be written on my forehead, and there were plenty of people who were not disinclined to harness my cockiness and excellent operational skills to further their own standing and power base in such hierarchies. It was only in times of crises such as the post-9/11 implosion of the markets and the collapse of the corporations which fed off them, that it became clear that these colleagues were, at best, fair-weather friends.
Shyness can best be described as a state of awkwardness, discomfort, and/or nervousness in social situations. It is often the product of fear of negative judgement, leading to self-consciousness, quietness, and avoidance.
Fuelled by self-doubt about being disliked or judged, it can cause symptoms such as blushing, trembling, and/or being lost for words, even among the most loquacious of us. It may also come out sideways in the form of incessant talking, which creates the illusion of being in control. Unfortunately, the illusion often only becomes apparent when everybody else has left the room and we find ourselves talking to an audience of one!
Shyness is quite common and is often overcome with the rise in confidence that chronological maturity brings. If not transcended, however, it can become a real hindrance in forming relationships, especially — as in my case — with girls during my teenage years and beyond. Shyness is distinct from social anxiety disorder, but these may overlap.
Once sexual maturity kicked in, this ever-present anxiety about my mixing with peers of the opposite sex may well explain the attraction of alcohol, weed, and other drugs during this period and subsequently. Drugs had the effect of taking the edge off the anxiety. That prize was so valued that no thought was given to the negative consequences of regular drinking and using. That chicken only came home to roost at the ripe old age of 42!
The feelings most often associated with shyness are those of discomfort, anxiety, insecurity, self-consciousness, and fear, especially the fear of rejection. These feelings were masked by certain levels of alcohol, THC, and other drugs in the body. At first, substance addiction was by no means a problem: indeed, it was a solution — an instant solution — that worked like magic!
The behavioural traits of a person in the bondage of shyness are quietness, gaze aversion, withdrawing, and an uncanny ability to disappear into the woodwork, even in a crowd.
These can all be triggered when meeting new people or entering unfamiliar environments, being — for whatever reasons — the centre of attention, or at social events, especially those which involve public speaking.
The root causes of this type of shyness may include fear of judgement and negative self-perception. They may also arise from learned behaviour within our family of origin and our general life experience.
A core element in fear of judgement is worrying that others will find me boring, flawed, or unlikeable. It is accentuated by the internalised critical voice – the Judge Saboteur – which is always finding fault with me. We may have grown up in a family or culture which was very judgemental, such as the Old Testament-oriented culture of Irish Catholicism of the 60’s and 70’s.
Negative self-perception is, in essence, the result of believing we’re not good enough. In my family of origin, the parents and other caregivers were often overwhelmed and would sometimes react very harshly to any performance or behaviour which fell short of being perfect.
As with any transformation process, if it is to be successful, transcending shyness will be made up roughly of 20% insights and 80% practice.
In terms of insight, the first step is awareness. After awareness comes the acceptance of what is. This is done in the spirit of compassion: compassion for self (past and present), of others, and of circumstances. We may then learn the skill of self regulation which will help us shift the autonomic nervous system back to a state of calm balance.
When these phases have been sufficiently mastered and are further cultivated in daily practice — one day at a time — we may begin to try out new ways of doing things, and new things to do.
Following the guiding principle of practice and exposure in the recent dance workshops, we gradually tried out new situations and approaches. The Wheel of Consent was a very powerful tool in this respect.
We were encouraged to shift our focus from what was bothering us to what would help in dealing with irritations while remaining present. Anxiety ceases to become a problem as soon as we identify and embrace it.
For self-regulation, and later co-regulation, we availed of breathing techniques. Deep, slow breaths can calm physical — and emotional — anxiety.
By challenging old belief systems (e.g., we are not allowed to express our inner-most yearnings with respect to physical touch and soothing), new horizons may open up.
And learning not to take anything — including ourselves — too seriously helps foster compassion, in all its forms, and facilitates the emergence of joy through movement, smiling, laughter, and simple play.
The gifts I took from these joyful workshops include the recognition of the fog surrounding my own default emotional and physical settings, the encouragement which arose through successful and playful experimentation, and a host of ideas as to how to continue to break free of the invisible shackles which have long been cheating me out of opportunities of intimacy and shared joy.
At least I have now located and embraced my True Self within that fog. With compassion and practice, that fog is sure to burn off.
