Overcoming Shyness – A Spiritual Approach

UrbanMonk.net has been kind enough to publish my guest post about shyness – Thanks!! This is based on my own personal experience in dealing with and working with my shyness.I hope it provides some help and inspiration for others of the shy persuasion šŸ™‚

What Is Your Personality Trying To Tell You? Overcoming Shyness

What is personality?

While each of us is inevitably shaped by our backgrounds, culture, society etc, and we develop preferences, likes, dislikes, interests, and so forth, we also develop what we call personality traits. If someone asks what kind of person you are, you might say, ā€œI’m outgoingā€ or ā€œI’m shyā€ or any number of ā€˜good’ or ā€˜bad’ but equally identifiable qualities that indicate how we present ourselves to the world.

What about ego?

When discussing personality, the word ā€˜ego’ has it’s own set of connotations. ā€œEgotisticalā€ is in itself a trait that we associate with a certain kind of person that perhaps is very self-absorbed, requires a lot of attention and so on. For the purpose of this article, the concept of ā€˜ego’ is the false set of ideas and thoughts we believe to contain our ā€œselfā€.

Head over to UrbanMonk.net to read the full article

Some other articles on shyness you may find interesting:

Think Simple Now – 20 Ways To Attack Shyness

Pick The Brain – Overcoming Shyness

Zen Habits – 8 Essential Tips To Overcoming Shyness

Stripping Away The Ego and Dealing With The ā€œUnconsciousā€ World

Since reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, I’ve definitely been more conscious of my own ego. The thing about it is that, the more you start to peel back the layers and recognize the ego, the more you realize just how ego-driven you are, no matter how conscious, shy, kind etc you may think you are- and therefore just how much work you have to do to become truly ego-free! So I’m realizing just how driven by ego I still am and how vigilant I must be in order to stop it taking over at every turn.I do generally consider myself to be more conscious than average. I consider other people’s feelings, I’m respectful of others, I try to treat people without judgment etc. However, what I’ve noticed about myself is that when I encounter people who are blatantly disrespectful or selfish, it really gets to me and elicits a lot of angry or annoyed thoughts. It’s not just because it represents an attack on my identity in some way because these things anger me even when they are not directed AT me, for example, when I see them happening around me to other people. Continue reading “Stripping Away The Ego and Dealing With The ā€œUnconsciousā€ World”

What Is The Ego?

What Is The Ego?

I’ve been reading Eckhart Tolle’s latest book ā€œA New Earthā€ and it’s been very inspiring. This man is truly enlightened, and once you begin to delve into the book and his ideas, it becomes clear that there is a distinction between true spiritual leaders like himself & Dr Wayne Dyer, and the ā€œmotivational coachesā€ such as James Ray and others. The distinction I would make is that while Ray and others focus on helping you get what you want in your life, in a spiritual manner, Tolle is talking about a much deeper understanding of spirituality and the connection between yourself and the world and the rest of humanity. I’m not knocking one approach over the other – I’ve found a lot of Ray’s writing to be very helpful and motivational and for me, as I’m sure with others, it provides a gateway into a deeper spiritual life which Tolle & Dyer discuss in more depth.

One of the main concepts that Tolle discusses in the book, is the distinction between our ego, and our true self or spirit. In order to break it down, I hope I’m not butchering his concepts too much šŸ˜‰

Continue reading “What Is The Ego?”