In this video, Brian gives you exercises to get more comfortable with being more expressive and “being seen” to help you get over shyness and playing small.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in March 2020.
It’s common for clients to be very shy, meek, and/or numbed out when they come to us to work on confidence, connection skills, or dating. They shrink energetically in how they communicate, playing small and safe, because, consciously or subconsciously, they are afraid of “being seen” by people. They’re afraid of people seeing them have emotions and feelings, expressing, and playing big. So we have a lot of exercises we take clients through to work through these blocks – both out in the real world (‘in-field”) and with our FEARLESS Models.
To work on being more expressive yourself, you need to start to step into manageable degrees of tension (the fears, anxiety, and vulnerability you feel) around being seen.
In the video, Brian takes you through his own story of working through his extreme shyness. He was terrified to even do some of the exercises he describes alone in his house out of fear someone would see him through a window or hear him, so even that was a start for him.
He then progressed to doing it on camera and eventually showing people the videos and then being more expressive in real life, around people..
A key many miss in trying to work on these things is being aware of your body, head to toe. When you disconnect from being aware of your body, emotions, and feelings (a way of stuffing down embarrassment and other uncomfortable emotions), you become a dancing monkey – an entertainer vs someone who’s actually connecting with people in a real way. How much you can grow from that is limited, because you’re not actually processing the emotions and you’re not emotionally connecting with people.
When you’re ready to start working on being seen being more expressive, do your thing (for example, if you sing, play an instrument, or like to dance, do that in public!), work on relaxing with it, and having fun for you – not to entertain or impress people or win them over. Brian discusses this more in the video.
Some of the social freedom expressiveness exercises from the video:
-hellos
-dancing
-singing
-having loud conversations that everyone around you can hear
Resources:
Build Your Confidence by Saying Hello to 100 Strangers By Brian Begin
Do This Exercise Every Day For 30 Days (Tension Journal you can use to progress with your Expressiveness Exercises)
