Overcoming shyness

I was stuck between making my first post about makeup or self tanning, but then I decided to talk about something real and personal in my life. Normally this would be hard for me to share, but its good to reach out of your comfort zone. Since I am talking about shyness, I feel like I need to backtrack and start from when I was younger.   

Going back in time to elementary school, everyone is friends with everyone and the drama is minimal. At this age, children don’t really care what other people think about them, they are honest, say what they feel, and they are truly themselves. The world seems so big and our parents are our real life superheroes. When I was in elementary school I went to the local public school in my neighborhood and considered everyone in class my best friends, but at this age, who doesn’t? I definitely was not shy and I talked to everyone. So many memories were made at such a young age and I’m grateful for everyone I met.

Getting older and moving on to 6^th grade, I started in a new public school that was much bigger with all new people. I remember sitting at my desk in English class thinking about the amount of people in the school, and as I looked around the room, I noticed how it seemed that so many classmates already knew each other. I could feel myself crawling under my shell where I suddenly felt so comfortable. At the time I didn’t realize how shy I was becoming.

My junior high was a great school, I was on the cheerleading team, played clarinet in the band, and was in the honors class. I was never shy around my family or friends, and I had made great friends here. I was very happy, but I was also quiet, especially with new people.  

Next, I transitioned from a large public intermediate school to a small Catholic high school with less than one hundred students in the graduate class. It probably seems like this drastic change in population size would make me more outgoing, but I felt content and secure by keeping to myself. Once again I was on the cheerleading team, participated in the band, and was in the scholars’ academy.  I had a group of friends from my class that I became close with my freshman year, yet I still was very quiet with everyone else. Being shy isn’t something you do on purpose; it’s hard to control. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be more talkative, but it was hard for me when I was so used to being the way I was. On the cheerleading mat I could yell so loud with my team as one, chant cheers at games, and wave my pom poms around as I was flying in the air. Off the mat I was shy, I knew I was, and people would tell me that all the time haha. It was true, you can ask anyone I went to school with.

Four years later, I started college, which was completely different from high school. Even though there is about fourteen thousand people on campus that somehow made it better. I decided to try out for the cheerleading team there and I made it. This was so exciting and at the college level you can do so many tricks that were not permitted in high school…but I can talk about cheerleading forever, so we’ll leave that for another time. As I was growing older and was now a freshman in college, I was not as shy as I had been in the past, but I was definitely still shy. There was one day during cheerleading practice where my coach asked me why I was so shy. One of my friends that I also cheered with in high school was on this team too, and she was standing there when he said that. Right away she said “You should have met her in high school! This is nothing.” It hit me then how shy I actually was.

Six months later it was spring and I applied to the nursing program, I was accepted, and the start date was at the end of August. My first day of nursing school was a clinical rotation at a local hospital. I am a nervous person, so I arrived to the hospital an hour early because I was worried about traffic on the highway and not having a parking spot, since students are not allowed to park in the visitor’s lot. What made me even more nervous was that my group did not have a lecture class before stepping foot in clinical. As the rest of my class arrived, no one else was nervous like I was and I couldn’t believe it. The fact that we had our own patient, who is a stranger, and had to interview them asking personal questions was out of my norm. Obviously this was something I had to get used to, but I was shy and this was only my initial encounter. Then we met our professor and she was amazing. She made me feel so much more comfortable and explained exactly what we needed to do. Weeks and months of interviewing new patients forced me to be more talkative and overcome shyness. I’m not saying I became extremely outgoing, but I am still growing and working on it. I feel different and I like it. My personality is exactly the same as it always has been, now, it just shows more. To some, this may not seem like an accomplishment, however, anyone who has battled shyness knows how hard it is to take control over. Some of my friends even noticed this change and have been so supportive in everything I do.  If anyone is also trying to overcome shyness, the best advice I can give is to find something you love and let it bring out the best in you.

xoxo Mikay