by Abieyuwa Ima-Edomwonyi

”There happens to be a great number of people who are super super talented in all areas of life and shyness has made them deny the world of their brilliant expertise…that is simply not fair!”

I know there are a lot of people on a constant struggle with shyness, I know this because I used to be one of them and I haven’t even completely defeated it. You know what sucks? Shyness comes with a load of self-doubt and lack of self-confidence; you don’t want to say something to someone because you don’t know what they’ll think, you don’t want to do something you love because you’re not sure its good enough or you’ll do it well enough…well, let me tell you something…all that is BOLLOCKS!

Answer me this… do you love yourself? Are you happy doing the things you love? If your answers are “YES” then you should seriously forget about what others think, don’t dwell on it because all that matters is you and how you feel. If you have something to say, speak up, don’t hide in the shadows, say it; air your opinions, join in the discussion, you’ll be surprised how big a difference you would make in your personal growth, and you’ll relate better with people…you’ll feel incredibly awesome, TRUST ME!

There was a point in my life when I was battling with CHRONIC shyness and timidity, it was so bad that sometimes, I would be too shy to put up statuses on Facebook or even update something on twitter. Yes oh; it was THAT bad! You can’t even imagine how long it took me before I published my very first post on this blog and even after I did, I was still soo nervous and worried what people reading it will think (lol).

I still suffer from slight “cyber shyness” sometimes, and I wish I didn’t because I have a lot of crayzeee in my head that I would love to share (and i’m sure all ya’ll “shy-locks” feel the same way). Apparently, I don’t do very well with attention; when someone acknowledges something good I’ve done, say on a post or on my blog generally, I literally don’t know how to feel…I get shy, anxious, embarrassed and happy all at the same time, my heart rate increases and I start to wonder “was it/I really that good?”
(sigh)but its a work in progress and i’ve made remarkable progress I must say; I know you can make that same progress and even more if you put your heart to it. YES YOU CAN!

The worst is when you meet new people (still a struggle for me, but progress is being made) I used to find it hard to hold up a conversation, you would literally hear crickets chirping in the background(lol).

Being shy could really make you lose a lot of opportunities or miss relating to people you may need in your life, it could give people the wrong impression about you and you may come across as a snob to them.

There’s one thing you should always remember, as long as there’s one thing about yourself that you love, you’ll always have this inner joy glowing through, learn to show it off. If you’ve got something/can do something that you would be proud to show off, you should show it off. If you’re not ready for “human contact” you can start with the internet (like I did)…There happens to be a great number of people who are super super talented in all areas of life and shyness has made them deny the world of their brilliant expertise…that is simply not fair!

Focus on the things you know, what you can do and all you’ve accomplished instead of worrying about how you look, sound or dress…it will give you a feeling of self-satisfaction, believe me. So join me in this battle against shyness, lets fight together!

Anyway, I just thought to share my thoughts on this subject and you won’t even believe how the inspiration for this post came about… I stumbled upon Cassandra Ikegbune’s blog and I dropped a comment on one of her posts, less than an hour later she replied and said “nice blog” I suddenly felt a wave of “shyness” wash over me (lol)…and every other feeling I described above happened to me(deep sigh). Seeing as I had been sitting in front of my computer looking for inspiration for my next article, a light bulb went on in my head and I decided to share this…I just hope someone somewhere finds some inspiration in this; remember, we are in this battle together.

Love Life, Love YOURSELF!

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Abieyuwa Ima-Edomwonyi is a twenty-something year old Nigerian, a computer engineer in training and a life and style blogger. She is also almost obsessed with fashion. She lives to inspire.

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija