Hi Chris,
when I was a child I was very shy too. No step without mum or dad. It changed when I was about 8 or 9 years old, and I became very rebellish and clown-like which of course causes problems with my teachers. Now I'm not really shy but it's difficult for me to get new friends and to be social, a loner, so to say.
On my Hemi-Sync-Journeys I took some looks on previous lifes and found that hiding from and being in opposite to other people is a pattern in "my" lifes. I don't know why, maybe there is no "why" like a traumatic experience, maybe it's just the way of my personality. But that could be different in your case. You have to find out that on your own, with Hemi Sync, Hypnosis etc...
Because your problem seems to be urgent, think about talking with a therapist, you can talk to them in a totally different way than to friends (or people who will possibly become friends) because there is no risk to loose a friend, to get bullied or to be ashamed of your anxiety, it's just the job of a therapist.
You know about your problem and you asked for help. That's the start to get better!
All the best, spooky

i got to agree with blink...

im not saying i was shy but i wasnt really outgoing, specially compared to some of my friends....but i didnt want to be i decided to change, change little things in your life that make you feel good, they all add up. and take steps, do things u would be embrassed by, feel uncomfatable, only sdmall things and work up, i can't dance, well couldnt, not sure if i can now! lol but i just did it and now i go to a club or a party or sumthin and dance and i dont care about anyone else (well what they think i mean) and no one cares, everyone just dances. Thats just an example but there many the same, the way to overcome shyness is to pretend ur not and u will soon get over it, plus shyness isnt a problem, were all different, don't think of it as a bad thing....

Ryan

.........aaaah Brendan!! Why, this is so cute!! 

Hi Chris

I think you are the only one who can have the final say as to why this has happened in your life. It would be more comforting for you to have someone else tell you why, but in the end, you are the one with the power to say why.

Which doesn't mean you can't as others for a list of possibilities to run through!

I have alot of talents but have also struggled with very low self esteem. Unless you have been there, you can't imagine how something like very low self esteem or a sense of being inferior can sabotage things you try to do.

There is a difference in asking why this is happening and in asking how one got there. In my case, my parents are alcoholics. If I want to come up with reasons or excuses for how I got this way, I have a whole grab-bag of things I can choose from. But that doesn't answer why I chose this family for my birth. If i were to go to your average counselor, who doesn't understand ideas of reincarnation or something similar, then I would just get ways to deal with the family. But I'm not sure that would help me deal with whatever it is in me that chose this family situation, which is the real question, I think.

I vaguely recall reading a story of a woman...this was in a collection of anecdotes on what past-life probing could reveal and produce...who was trying to write something, a book maybe, and she couldn't finish it. So she sought help from a counselor. In delving into ...whatever, she experienced recalling a past life in which a diary she had written was used to prosecute or persecute her. Her written words had been used against her. The realization of why she was blocked from writing and that that life wasn't here and now released her to finish her writing. I don't think this is your story, I think you have to have the personal experience to have the freeing; it's the process of finding for yourself what happened that helps free you.

I'm not "good" at doing this past life exploring but I have had times when I have read somethign that someone else write and had a profound emotional response to it and sometimes it has opened somethign up for me, so I think there is more than one way to get at this info.

One thing that struck me when I read it was something in the Seth stuff, I think, something about anearlier people, like Lemurians, who disliked conflict so much that they would faint rather than confront someone (please remember that is my memory of something I read a couple of decades ago!). That made me realize how different my response might be from someone else's response. I had been very argumentative as a child and teen but a teacher's comment had set me to thinking. I became just the opposite. Not for personality but because of a belief. I turned the other cheek to excess! not a good path either. I still am not sure how and when to speak out most effectively.

What is interesting is that you got a number of replies that say the person has or has had similar feelings. I think that is interesting. Maybe even significant. You are obviously very sensitive to the ambience created by other people. There are so many dense and insensitive ones out there who wouldn't even respond like you do because they don't see what you see. I just think that means something important even though I'm not sure what it is.

Sometimes when I remember to do it and am able to do it, it helps if I am able to focus on PUL even for people I can't stand. If I am focusing on the PUL I don't focus on feeling inferior.

Well Blink...I in some ways dealt with the same thing. I was bullied because I was so unique and introverted. My uniqueness as a black kid who wasn't the stereotypical black kid....I didn't do what everyone else did....I had very good grades...and I was poor when everyone else was buying 150 dollar shoes.

People bullied me like I did something wrong and it just made me even more of a distrusting, to myself, self loathing individual. It more or less defines ME now and who I became, because that for me was society's big test that I "failed". I think the reality of that is that it does force you to cope and you ultimately learn a lesson.

Remember the phrase..."struggle only makes a man stronger". And because our "struggle" was more emotional, that led us to be who and what we are now. The only concern I have now is was all of that a destined path? Was who I am now going to be the case regardless and that I had to go through those times to become who I am now?

Well regardless, I do feel that in life you will get the answers to the things that you seek the answer to, whether its in this lifetime or in the Afterlife!! I would just reflect back on that time and be thankful for it creating a definitive of your character. I meet so many one-dimensional, shallow individuals who never had to work for anything and always had everything "perfect" and it makes me appreciate who I am.

I consider myself an enigma for everyone around me and for myself to TRY and figure out....and that has made life interesting!!!! Just think about that. Those experiences made you into a unique individual, and them bullying you was just a sheepish reaction to them wanting to be you or not understanding you and reminding them of their impurities and issues.....so in the end, you won. The prize is just realizing what all of that means....

HI Folks-

So many who have chosen to take up their cross in this lifetime so that they would be driven to communicate on a past life information forum!  So very many! Who'da thunk it?

I you really want to discover why you chose this specific path, get someone who is skilled at guiding past life regressions to help you go back and have a look. Out of thousands of hours as a past life therapist, I have never yet found a person with a present history of abuse who didn't select this life for a good reason. Usually it seems to be the result of our being a bully in the past, or a cruel soldier, a mean parent,  or the equivalent. (Unfortunately, that seems to have included me as well. Hah!)

Conversely, had I not been subjected to sexual and physical abuse as a child, I would neither be as competent in psychoanalysis as I am, nor would I have been motivated to look into spiritual truths as a way to understand what was happening. Taken in sum, this is a good life, and I'm glad I was victimized. But I don't think I want to do it again, thank you.

dave

Hi Brendan
You ask why, and there's never a good enough answer except "because". 

Why, for example, would a presumably intelligent adult throw away a lifetime in order to poke cocaine up his nose? Why would an otherwise competent wife and mother choose to have an affair? Why would a father beat his child to death? The very best answer I heard was when Clinton was talking about his escapades with Monica Levinsky. Why did he do it? He said, "Because I could."

It seems that human naure is imperfect, and the way we learn is to do various things until we discover how to avoid the ones that cause pain. One part of these is the things we do to others and to the outside world. The other part is things we do
to ourselves, by attachment to attitudes that serve us badly, such as by refusing to enjoy what we are doing, by rejecting whatever security we have in favor of rage and anger against others, and by choosing false pride, self delusion and tinsel for the solid truth and fact through which we can acquire the true gold of wisdom.

Fortunately, those are only problems for other people, eh? I certainly don't see any of that applying to me personally.

dave