Tips For the Socially Reticent

Some people are known to be loners, reticent. If you are one of them, you avoid social encounters. You don’t make too many friends and like keeping to yourself. People, and encounters with them, make you uncomfortable. You find it difficult to have meaningful and positive interactions with others. Maybe you have tried before but it only led to bad results – there were misunderstandings, hurt and heart breaks, incompatibility. Maybe you even feel that most people, if not everyone, are potential sources of trouble. You feel that if you try to build a relationship, sooner or later, something is going to go wrong between you and them. They don’t really understand you, they can’t understand you.

You have decided that you are better off without this trouble. You don’t need them, you are happy by yourself. You believe that people are different, some connect well with other while some don’t. Maybe you are one of those who don’t. You believe that your happiness is within you and you don’t need anything external to be happy and content. You are in total control of yourself, you are totally compatible with yourself, you are enough for You. Why even get into something where you are not totally in control and that is usually painful? Over the years, you have learnt how to live with yourself and be content. You are self reliant now.

Our happiness is within ourselves.

I totally agree that our happiness is within our selves. If you believe this, you are already a very good step ahead of the majority of the masses, who seek their happiness in others and remain forever wanting. There are so many who can’t imagine being alone, by themselves. They seek the company of others more because they seek security in numbers. There are too many people who have a lot of superficial friends but no genuine ones. While sharing happiness is good, looking for your happiness and security in others is weakness.

Those who are like that, those who have no genuine friends, those who have to put up a false front in front of even the closest friends, need to ask themselves what are their reasons for being with such friends.

… Then why connect with others?

Having said that, connecting with others has its benefits too. In fact, it is quite essential in personal growth and multiplying your happiness. It provides two very distinctive good things – one, you can share your happiness with others and, consequently, make it multiply manifolds. Two, you can learn from others.

We are social animals. And we are conscious beings. It is our nature to learn from others, to grow as a result of our transactions, to share our knowledge and happiness with others. Other human beings are a part of our conscious reality. Interacting with them, connecting with them helps us discover parts of ourselves we have not yet seen. It’s a process of self discovery. This world is one big whole and we are all connected. Consciously accepting this connection and acknowledging the bond of love helps us understand our true nature and helps us grow.

Multiply happiness by sharing it. While our happiness is within us, it expands and multiplies so much more when we share it with those whom we find compatible with us. Don’t believe me? Go out and find someone genuinely in need of help. Offer your help. It can be a helpless destitute whom you provide a meal or just help an old person cross a road. Know of someone who is going through bad times and needs talking to? Go and offer your company. While going to such people may seem contrary to your liking, once you help them, you may be surprised by the happiness this induces in you. Helping others is also a selfish act. It’s for your own good.

Now try connecting with someone whose company you cherish. If there is none, find the closest match you can. Just go up to this person an tell him/her how much you appreciate their company and their presence in your life. After saying this, just sit there, don’t try to make meaningless talk. Let things flow. A deep, meaningful conversation may ensue, or you may just sit in silence together with an invisible bond between you that makes your hearts warm. This, is connection. This is pure joy, a feeling of completeness and not wanting anything else, nor wishing to run to finish another errand. There is no substitute to this joy, and nothing that comes with money can buy it.

This might not come right away, or every time you try, it might take some iterations to remove mental blocks to this flow of joy. But it is definitely worth the effort.

Learn from others. The way the actions of others affect you, the way they make you respond, tells a lot about you. It’s an opportunity for personal understanding and growth, that is not to be missed. When you get mad at someone, it is something inside you that you are not happy with. Your ego doesn’t like being held responsible so it promptly points towards the other person.

It’s true that you don’t find every connection positive. You have to seek out those with whom you feel more energized, more positive. Others are also a part of you. They are not to be hated or avoided. It’s just that you focus more on the positives.

When you can see yourself reflected in those around you, your joy knows no bounds.

What about low self esteem and fear? Fear comes from the idea of separation. We are not separate from each other. We are all connected. Quantum physics has a lot of evidences pointing towards the connected ness of the whole Universe. You don’t feel afraid of yourself, then why be afraid of others who are as much part of you.. The inputs you get from others may not all be comfortable but they are all useful insights, they are an opportunity to learn and grow, to improve yourself.

If you think others find you boring, you have to start asking yourself questions – ‘Have I been looking for positive connections in the wrong places? Do I need to let go of myself in front of others. Should I not take jokes personally and learn to laugh along with others?’ You will have to ask yourself questions, experiment and learn. It most probably won’t become all rosy right away, growth requires effort. But avoiding this effort will be to live a life less beautiful, it would mean to have just existed.

What to do about hurt and misunderstandings? Again the same applies. They are a reflection of you and all hurt and misunderstandings are opportunities to learn and improve. Gold shines only after going through fire. And fire is not necessarily bad, it is only so if we think it is. It can be used to burn homes, or it can be used to cook your food. What is bad is no the fire, but the use you put it to. These uncomfortable occurrences are bad if we think they are. It is possible to love and accept them, even learn from them.

You can either avoid such situations, live in a comfort zone, never improving, never growing your happiness. Or you can accept them, stop resisting them and surrender to them, observe them, observe yourself in them, and come out a better, more knowledgeable person than you were.

Bad situations will occur more in the beginning. Once you stop resisting them, their frequency decreases and dies out. You learn and become better with each mistake. Most benefits will come when you have made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot. It takes time, you will have to be patient. The good thing is, the path of real learning is exciting and interesting by itself. You will be enjoying each and every nugget of wisdom on your way!

What to do to make better relations and friends? Well, just go out and make them Try, fail, learn, try again…

You will find the way.

*****

If you have a problem with people, it points to something about yourself that you don’t like. But ignoring or avoiding them is ignoring a part of yourself.

Whatever we see and perceive, is part of our reality. We learn and grow by observing our world. While all objects are beautiful and magnificent in nature, nothing compares to connecting with a conscious being. Connecting with objects feels good, connecting with trees, who are living beings like us, feels better. Animals are even better. When you observe and connect with animals, especially pets, you feel so intensely alive and aware. They are so totally ‘in the moment’ that they pull you into it. The next, higher level is connection with another conscious human being. It’s almost like looking into a mirror.

Like any other thing that is helpful, being able to create meaningful and up lifting relationships comes with some effort. If you say you don’t need people and social interactions, I think you are just shying away from a bitter truth – you don’t want to make the effort and lack the courage it takes to build fulfilling relationships.

Make the effort, don’t be lazy, don’t deny yourself life. Expand into your true self.

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Rahul Singh is a writes at Rahul Speaks.