The Mindful Path Through Shyness: How Mindfulness & Compassion Can Free You from Social Anxiety, Fear & Avoidance

(Paperback)

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Research shows that chronic shyness has core components of self-blame, private self-consciousness, shame, and resentment. These mental habits operate automatically and often unconsciously, but by bringing mindful awareness into these cognitive and emotional states, it is possible to regulate our attention and emotions. The Mindful Path Through Shyness helps readers who struggle with shyness social anxiety begin to notice the patterns that cause them to feel isolated and take steps toward change. Readers will identify the origins of their shyness and learn how they have reinforced this behavior by avoiding social situations and dwelling on feelings of self-consciousness and shame. They then discover activities and skills drawn from mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), including mindful meditation, conscious breathing, yoga, and simple exercises, that can help them overcome fears and judgments.

Reviews

"The Mindful Path Through Shyness draws on transformative meditations and psychological wisdom. The anecdotes and guided practices provide a wonderful support, not only for those who suffer from anxiety, but for all who wish to live an openhearted and mindful life."
--Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance

"The Mindful Path Through Shyness is a generous offering of the powerful and practical tools of mindfulness practice, specifically geared to the situation of those who are living with debilitating shyness and social anxiety disorder."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness

"A heartfelt and practical guide to the application of mindfulness for approaching, resting within, and ultimately transforming one's relationship to social fears and inhibitions."
--Zindel V. Segal, PhD, author of The Mindful Way Through Depression

"Reader, in your hands is a beautifully crafted elucidation of the healing power of mindfulness for catalyzing a powerful, positive shift in your relationship to shyness and social anxiety. Clear, kind, and wise, it is a true call to remember the fullness that we are behind our symptoms and suffering. Eminently practical, the use of metaphor is striking and revelatory. Here's one: 'If shyness is a wilderness, mindfulness is your compass.' Steve Flowers has walked in this wilderness; he has found the trail. With tremendous care and attention, he shows us a way through."
--Saki F. Santorelli, EdD, MA, associate professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and author of Heal Thyself

"Shyness is more than a social inconvenience. It can be a debilitating process that keeps us from making the intimate connections with others that is biologically and psychologically necessary for our well-being. Steve Flowers uses his considerable skill and wisdom to illuminate this dilemma with the light of mindfulness practice. He presents compassionate insight and practical guidance that gently lead us into an authentic ease and confidence in our social surroundings."
--William Martin, author of The Parent's Tao Te Ching

"Steve Flowers has written a warm, accessible, funny, and practical book to help people use mindfulness to reduce problematic shyness. With great good humor, he also shares personal experiences, challenges, and insights that helped him overcome his own shyness. His book is a valuable contribution to the self-help literature on shyness, revealing how shyness is adaptive, how it can turn into a barrier to achieving your goals, and how it can become another passing experience that you can notice, accept, and then let go, so that it doesn't diminish your quality of life."
--Lynne Henderson, PhD, faculty member at Stanford University

Author Bio

Steve Flowers, MFT, conducts mindfulness-based stress reduction online programs and is the founder and director of the mindfulness-based stress reduction clinic at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, CA. He also works in private practice as a psychotherapist. Jeffrey Brantley, MD, is professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry and human behavior at Duke University Medical Center. He is founder and former director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at Duke Integrative Medicine. He has represented the Duke MBSR program in numerous radio, television, and print interviews. He is author of Calming Your Anxious Mind, and coauthor of the Five Good Minutes(R) series.